Please tell me how a double-blinded test could make these results any different.
In a non-blind test, the tester may find that the files are different, assume that he himself made an error, and repeat the experiment until he gets the "right" result.
When you make ice tea, you add so much lemon and sugar it tends to overpower the taste of tea, so it probably doesn't matter much which tea you use.
Since I learnt to brew tea well, I always prefer it to teabags. Tea bags are not just ordinary tea in bags; the tea is preprocessed to release its taste into the hot water more quickly.
There are EU rules concerning the names of products. Only sparkling white wines from the French Champagne district may be called Champagne, for example.
It's very common to sell the same product both branded and unbranded. Not everyone can afford the branded product, and selling it cheap and unbranded to those customers is better than not selling it at all.
Red has a wavelength thats more like 550-650nm or something like that...
I don't agree. Colours are psychological phenomena, not physical. What we perceive to be red does not only depend on the wavelengths emitted by an object, but also on things like lighting conditions, colours of surrounding objects, and patterns. It's nonsense to say that "the colour red" has a wavelength.
I doubt that there is any legal basis for prosecution in that case. But let's assume there is, and examine the consequences.
You're a drugstore owner who's getting robbed. The robber says he'll kill one of your customers if you don't open your safe. You refuse, and he shoots the customer through their head. Are you legally responsible for their death?
If 'yes', then you are in effect legally required to open your safe when the robber tells you to. You have no choice in the matter.
Another situation: Your wife threatens to commit suicide if you divorce her. Will you be held legally responsible for her death if you do?
If 'yes', you're in effect legally required to stay with her. You have no choice in the matter.
I wish the 'Pirate Party' would stop calling itself that. Piracy is seriously wrong - there's nothing glamorous about it.
In Sweden, downloading movies and songs is so widely accepted that the media industry look like fools for calling it "piracy". Choosing the name Pirate Party was an act of rebellion - it was like saying, "We don't give a damn what you think".
But I understand the choice of name may seem strange in other countries. I raised an eyebrow myself when I heard about it the first time - it seemed just a little too provocative. But I quickly got used to it.
Now that the pirates and leakers have combined forces, the mud on one will stick to to the other.
You don't get it - here in Sweden, Wikileaks are viewed as freedom fighters, even by the traditional newspapers and political parties. The political right usually defends the USA, but in this case, there is agreement all over the political spectrum that what Wikileaks did was right. The glory of Wikileaks will stick on the Pirate Party, not the mud.
Well, the Pirate Party has a number of loosely related issues on their agenda, so it's not strictly a 1-issue group:
* Free speech * Free flow of information for society as a whole * Privacy for the individual * Free culture, i.e a significantly weakened copyright * Abolishing patents * Just and secure trials
It is remarkable that it has already got two seats in the European Parliament, and it seems very well-organised.
It assumes the laws regarding this are fuzzy and emotional and rife with illogic.
When a government (or military) official wants to classify illegal conduct, they make sure the document contains both the illegal conduct and something which there are valid reasons to keep secret. That way, it becomes impossible to prove that the document was classified just to hide the illegal parts. It's called "plausible deniability".
It doesn't matter if the law is clear and well-written; there are always ways to go around it for those who know the system and have the right contacts.
And the law only covers conduct which can be proven to be illegal. The government (or military) can do a lot of nasty things which are not technically illegal, or cannot be proven to be, but which are still morally reprehensible and should be revealed to the world by any means necessary. Like defining waterboarding as not being torture and using it against prisoners.
I agree that you are *morally* responsible for the indirect effects of your actions. But being legally responsible would be absurd. For example, if you reveal to a man that his wife has had an affair, and he beats her because of this, should you be held responsible for the assault? Morally, yes; you should think twice before doing something which affects other people. But legally? Of course not, it's the husband who is guilty of the assault, not you.
I haven't looked up reliable sources for exactly how much Wikileaks revealed in the Afghanistan papers and what it may lead to, so I can't really say if it's justified. But there is no doubt that Wikileaks had the *legal* right to do what they did.
Point taken. But democracy doesn't work well in the absence of free speech, which is why secret organisations seem almost invulnerable to democratic scrutiny. Disobeying the laws which limit free speech may be necessary from time to time to ensure that democracy works, not just on paper, but in practice.
The Pirate Party has a serious political agenda. They want to reduce copyright terms to five years, legalise non-commercial copying, and abolish patents.
I support Wikileaks' right to publish the classified material, but I don't blame USA for prosecuting the soldier who leaked them. The law has to be the same for everyone. It may have been morally right for the soldier to leak the documents, but he still has to be judged according to the law.
That some people feel like the process isn't working is a problem to be resolved by the democratic process.
You mean, like the Founding Fathers petitioned the British government to grant independence to the American colonies, and then diligently obeyed all British laws while waiting for their request to be granted?
That some people feel like the process isn't working is a problem to be resolved by the democratic process.
Julian Assange is using the democratic process. He exercises his right to free speech by legally releasing classified documents that may be of interest to the public.
I have no idea if the US soldiers did anything wrong in that video or just had bad luck in a stressful situation, but the US military did lie and claim that the video didn't exist. IMHO, that is enough reason to publish it.
Slashdot Mirror
Please tell me how a double-blinded test could make these results any different.
In a non-blind test, the tester may find that the files are different, assume that he himself made an error, and repeat the experiment until he gets the "right" result.
I haven't specifically compared Twinings and Liptons, but I agree that Twinings holds a higher quality than many other brands.
The most important thing is how you brew your tea, though. The difference between tea bags and a properly brewed tea is huge.
When you make ice tea, you add so much lemon and sugar it tends to overpower the taste of tea, so it probably doesn't matter much which tea you use.
Since I learnt to brew tea well, I always prefer it to teabags. Tea bags are not just ordinary tea in bags; the tea is preprocessed to release its taste into the hot water more quickly.
There are EU rules concerning the names of products. Only sparkling white wines from the French Champagne district may be called Champagne, for example.
It's very common to sell the same product both branded and unbranded. Not everyone can afford the branded product, and selling it cheap and unbranded to those customers is better than not selling it at all.
Red has a wavelength thats more like 550-650nm or something like that...
I don't agree. Colours are psychological phenomena, not physical. What we perceive to be red does not only depend on the wavelengths emitted by an object, but also on things like lighting conditions, colours of surrounding objects, and patterns. It's nonsense to say that "the colour red" has a wavelength.
At least, that's my opinion.
I doubt that there is any legal basis for prosecution in that case. But let's assume there is, and examine the consequences.
You're a drugstore owner who's getting robbed. The robber says he'll kill one of your customers if you don't open your safe. You refuse, and he shoots the customer through their head. Are you legally responsible for their death?
If 'yes', then you are in effect legally required to open your safe when the robber tells you to. You have no choice in the matter.
Another situation: Your wife threatens to commit suicide if you divorce her. Will you be held legally responsible for her death if you do?
If 'yes', you're in effect legally required to stay with her. You have no choice in the matter.
That's true.
Yes, and unfortunately he needs to be prosecuted, since the law has to be the same for everyone.
Damn, don't get my hopes up like that :)
I wish the 'Pirate Party' would stop calling itself that. Piracy is seriously wrong - there's nothing glamorous about it.
In Sweden, downloading movies and songs is so widely accepted that the media industry look like fools for calling it "piracy". Choosing the name Pirate Party was an act of rebellion - it was like saying, "We don't give a damn what you think".
But I understand the choice of name may seem strange in other countries. I raised an eyebrow myself when I heard about it the first time - it seemed just a little too provocative. But I quickly got used to it.
Now that the pirates and leakers have combined forces, the mud on one will stick to to the other.
You don't get it - here in Sweden, Wikileaks are viewed as freedom fighters, even by the traditional newspapers and political parties. The political right usually defends the USA, but in this case, there is agreement all over the political spectrum that what Wikileaks did was right. The glory of Wikileaks will stick on the Pirate Party, not the mud.
"Political entity"?
Anyone can form a political party. It doesn't make the state responsible for their actions.
Is the US government reponsible for what the Green and Libertarian parties do?
Well, the Pirate Party has a number of loosely related issues on their agenda, so it's not strictly a 1-issue group:
* Free speech
* Free flow of information for society as a whole
* Privacy for the individual
* Free culture, i.e a significantly weakened copyright
* Abolishing patents
* Just and secure trials
It is remarkable that it has already got two seats in the European Parliament, and it seems very well-organised.
The Wikileaks staff did strike out most names of innocent parties and only missed a few.
Isn't there a moral duty to reveal some things which are technically legal?
It assumes the laws regarding this are fuzzy and emotional and rife with illogic.
When a government (or military) official wants to classify illegal conduct, they make sure the document contains both the illegal conduct and something which there are valid reasons to keep secret. That way, it becomes impossible to prove that the document was classified just to hide the illegal parts. It's called "plausible deniability".
It doesn't matter if the law is clear and well-written; there are always ways to go around it for those who know the system and have the right contacts.
And the law only covers conduct which can be proven to be illegal. The government (or military) can do a lot of nasty things which are not technically illegal, or cannot be proven to be, but which are still morally reprehensible and should be revealed to the world by any means necessary. Like defining waterboarding as not being torture and using it against prisoners.
I agree that you are *morally* responsible for the indirect effects of your actions. But being legally responsible would be absurd. For example, if you reveal to a man that his wife has had an affair, and he beats her because of this, should you be held responsible for the assault? Morally, yes; you should think twice before doing something which affects other people. But legally? Of course not, it's the husband who is guilty of the assault, not you.
I haven't looked up reliable sources for exactly how much Wikileaks revealed in the Afghanistan papers and what it may lead to, so I can't really say if it's justified. But there is no doubt that Wikileaks had the *legal* right to do what they did.
Point taken. But democracy doesn't work well in the absence of free speech, which is why secret organisations seem almost invulnerable to democratic scrutiny. Disobeying the laws which limit free speech may be necessary from time to time to ensure that democracy works, not just on paper, but in practice.
That's a rather extreme view. In war, there has to be secret intelligence.
They did redact hundreds of names, and missed three, one of which was already dead, and another who was a double agent.
The Pirate Party has a serious political agenda. They want to reduce copyright terms to five years, legalise non-commercial copying, and abolish patents.
I support Wikileaks' right to publish the classified material, but I don't blame USA for prosecuting the soldier who leaked them. The law has to be the same for everyone. It may have been morally right for the soldier to leak the documents, but he still has to be judged according to the law.
That some people feel like the process isn't working is a problem to be resolved by the democratic process.
You mean, like the Founding Fathers petitioned the British government to grant independence to the American colonies, and then diligently obeyed all British laws while waiting for their request to be granted?
That some people feel like the process isn't working is a problem to be resolved by the democratic process.
Julian Assange is using the democratic process. He exercises his right to free speech by legally releasing classified documents that may be of interest to the public.
I have no idea if the US soldiers did anything wrong in that video or just had bad luck in a stressful situation, but the US military did lie and claim that the video didn't exist. IMHO, that is enough reason to publish it.