Their competencies vary by individual, but all have had above-average education. The fact that they have to grossly simplify their positions, even lie, in order to get elected only shows that the method of their selection is faulty, not necessarily the selection itself.
Any American-born citizen 35-years or older with enough charisma can get elected. It just happens that charisma isn't necessarily linked to the ability to lead intelligently. (Any leader has charisma, else he wouldn't have followers. That doesn't make him a good leader.)
Prejudice takes many forms. Knowledge is its greatest weakness. In all cases, knowledge simply takes the pre out of prejudice. Whether or not it changes an individual's mind depends on the individual.
My former roommate went to a Harry Potter party Friday night. While lots of folks were dressed up as Harry Potter characters, one person was walking around in a Sailor Moon outfit.
It's tricky, for me. The first sci-fi I remember reading was the huge collection of 1970s Analog magazine issues my dad had in his library. Then I read Worthing Saga, followed by Ender's Game and Xenocide, Asimov's Lucky Starr series, and, finally, all of Heinlein's works, from his short story collection Expanded Universe to Stranger in a Strange Land through Time Enough for Love and I Will Fear No Evil.
Mind you, this was all between 1993 and 1996, when I was 10-13 years old...My mother would kick me off the computer to get me to go outside. I'd grab a book from our library and sit in the building stairwell. Later on, when I was 15 or 16, I started reading Niven. I barely skirted Known Space, and only read Ringworld, The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer.
By the time I got around to reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was to come out in a couple months. I only read it to find out what all the fuss was about. I read and enjoyed the first four books, but, for some reason, I didn't feel motivated to read the rest of the series. (Though I have listened to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. If you haven't listened to the audiobooks, you've missed what are quite possibly the best performances of the material.)
Eventually, my mother stopped kicking me off the computer, and I stopped reading anything that wasn't online. Until about a year ago, that is. I wound up checking a bunch of books out of the library to research info on Dyson spheres, and wound up checking out the remaining books of the Ringworld series in the process. Lots of fun.
Well 18 years on 50 computers equals about 2 years on 100 modern computers. Er...you don't think they upgraded their systems as better components became available?
Now, imagine there is a similar system in various structures, such as the military. At one point this dumb system [but with a huge knowledgebase] kicks our ass (simply because it can). Humans will go extinct, while this dumb system is now the only sign of civilization on the planet; the only problem is that the system has no learning capabilities and is not truly intelligent. That's an awesome idea for a sci-fi story...
OK, so you are basing you opinion on a summary from a friend...oooK, fine. What's wrong with that? It's called "word of mouth", and it's a far more effective advertising medium for good products when one is looking for dedicated customers. If you didn't believe that word-of-mouth recommendations had any value, you wouldn't be reading Slashdot comments. (Mind you, I'm not suggesting that you take Slashdot comments at face value...Sometimes one reads a comment to learn what not to think.)
But don't tell me it cost a sale when we both know damn well you would have read the ending at the book store and still not purchased it. You don't know anything about my purchasing habits. I'll typically buy a book online, then lend it out to people until it doesn't get returned. Amazon.com and bn.com aren't really conducive to reviewing a book prior to purchase, so I rely on other folks' discussions of the books. And I've never been disappointed.
and it won't cost them a single sale. Actually, it did. Me. I'm unsatisfied with how the book ends. (No, I won't tell you how...)
I'm one of those oddballs that enjoys knowing how a book ends before I read it all the way through; If I know certain characters don't show up in the final scene, I'm on edge throughout the whole book wondering when they die or otherwise drop out. That's where I get my suspense.
Mind you, I haven't actually read the book; A close friend read it, and I asked him for a summary at lunch today.
Just because you're a pothead doesn't mean you need to buy into all this tin hat conspiracy BS.
Nice ad hominem there. I've never smoked, probably never will.
The law will protect you from unlawful searches, meaning that you're not invincible to unlawful searches, but that you won't be convicted.
Only if you can afford a competent lawyer, and even then there's no guarantee. Otherwise, we wouldn't have an appeals system. And all that time, you're hemorrhaging money on legal representation while possibly spending time in jail, away from your job. Bills pile up. Reporters might start covering the case, leading to consequences when looking for future jobs. And for some crimes, you can forget any notion of a fair trial or coverage.
No, half of your "just because" points were invalid, like the mod chip, that is illegal for so many reasons. You can put a mod chip in a ham radio and broadcast on police frequencies, should that be legal too?
I intentionally included points that some folks would disagree with, as it's all a matter of perspective. By the way, modchips are only illegal because of the DMCA. (Is that "so many" reasons?) And you don't need to mod a ham radio to listen to police frequencies; They're already capable of tuning to those frequencies. All you need to be allowed to listen in on those frequencies is a ham license, and those are easy to come by. (I've been thinking of getting one myself, so I'll have a way to get emergency services if/when FiOS or Vonage-style services go down at the same time as cell service.)
The laws may not be catered to you, but they are catered to society. The reason the govt doesn't want you smoking pot all day is because it turns you into a welfare baby. Maybe not you personally, but others it certainly does and will. You're not allowed to have sex with children either, it may seem fine to you and the kid you're screwing, but society does not agree. Such a shame, isn't it?
The laws are not catered to society. That was my point in my original post. Laws are passed by politicians who are seeking to gain favor of vocal portions of the population. Most of those laws get enforced when possible by police. Many people ignore laws, because it's not possible for the police to enforce them 100% of the time, and they're willing to put up with the laws existing as long as they're not applied. See speed limit laws, for example. You tolerate them because they're not strictly enforced.
My arguments against mass-surveillance programs like London's and, now, New York's stem from the fact they must inevitably lead to stricter enforcement of inappropriate laws.
And what place is that? Anything but a school zone and you're fine going
In Walker, MI, traffic jams form behind police cars; When they pull you over, there's no talking your way out of a ticket. If your car isn't worth at least $10,000, you don't want to be caught driving in the residential portions of East Grand Rapids.
Oh yes, I vacationed in London last March. I rented a car and drove around, and I was nervous about that, but they don't give you a ticket unless you're going very fast, 10mph is not enough. I should know, because I was driving faster than the speed limit, along with the rest of the cars.
So? Their traffic cameras must be laxer than ones in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Flagging you for agressive behavior and shooting or arresting you for agressive behavior are two different things.
Your mention of shooting is a red herring. Yet while flagging and arresting are different, systems based on automated audiovisual surveillance will log these things, and that log will eventually show up as a blip on sufficiently-detailed background checks and data-mining investigations. Two or three times a year, we h
One of the MANY problems with universal spying and surveillance is that it makes selective enforcement of laws that much EASIER. Certainly. But I expect automated enforcement systems like traffic cameras and aggression detectors will be a much bigger problem.
Until people learn to put up with it. But I'm cynical...
because a program insists on aborting the shutdown procedure until it finishes what it's working on. Vista doesn't allow apps to do that any more. Well, that's good.
Anyway, there's nothing you can possibly do to speed up that process' shutdown. Sure there is...I can go into msconfig and prevent the process from being loaded in the first place. At least, most of the time, though perhaps not in this particular case.
This is ridiculous. You mean like ripping the tags off of mattresses? Oh I do that all the time. Hell everybody's robbed a little old lady at some time in their life, right? What people like you don't realize is that municipal, state and federal laws aren't about catering to your particular habits, unless you've got millions to dedicate to lobbying.
Just because you don't rip the tags off mattresses doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't smoke in the privacy of your own home doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't store copies of your music on your iPod doesn't mean it should be illegal to do so. Just because you don't watch movies on Linux doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use off-brand ink cartridges doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't load your own ammunition for self defense doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use AdBlock doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use a mod chip in your console system doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't copy pages out of books at your local public library doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use wifi on Linux doesn't mean it should be illegal.
And if you do do one of these things, it should be rather clear to you that just because the other guy doesn't do it, it shouldn't be illegal.
Am I getting through?
The only crime I think I've ever committed were traffic violations. I always drive close to 10mph over and any cop who feels like giving me a hard time can pull me over and give me a ticket for 9mph over or whatever I'm going at the time. But they don't. Isn't that worth something? It means the police in the area you live in are more lenient than the police in some areas I've lived in. But that's irrelevant because...
These people policing you are just that, people. ...policing won't always be handled by people. Haven't you ever heard of traffic cameras? Toll systems that automatically ticket you when they detect your average speed exceeded the speed limit? As I recall, Texas is implementing the latter, while the former is so common that articles about people fighting it show up every couple weeks on Fark.
And there have been recent articles on Slashdot about automated camera-based biometric recognition systems. I also recall mention of an automated system to be tested in London (Already! And they haven't had their camera system all that long!) that flags aggressive behavior on an automated basis.
Just because you don't roughhouse with your friends doesn't mean it should be illegal.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Notice the word "essential" in front of "liberty" and "temporary" in front of "safety". I see Franklin's use of the word essential as describing liberty as essential. However, he did use the word "liberty" as opposed to "rights," which may suggest limitations.
However, for someone as articulate and reasoned as you are, I'm surprised you would call anything permanent, even by implication. The only permanent safety we may reasonably expect is in death. Aside from possible grandiosity, why else do you think Patrick Henry might state a preference Death over Liberty?
And, to be sure, Franklin's use of the word "safety" is far different from what how it's used in terrorism debates. In Franklin's time, "safety" meant that one's position would be stable, not merely a guarantee of life and limb. To limit his use of the word "safety" to just the concept of health is to twist the meaning of his statement.
Also, the extremely vague things you noted (situations that allow warrantless searches, pen register provisions which allow warrantless call logging, and large volumes of security cameras) were around long before 9/11 and long before Bush. That doesn't mean they're not an encroachment on our rights. It took well over fifty years and a civil war for the statement "All men are created equal" to be officially construed as applying to slaves. The fact that it wasn't applied as such didn't make laws enabling the concept of being someone's property by birth any more right.
Yet another example of indicting technology for the sake of doing so, assuming the worst motivations on the part of people charged with the protection of the country and its people, and woefully - willfully? - misunderstanding and misconstruing the intentions of a statement by one of our founding fathers I don't indict technology. However, I fully expect people in positions of power to abuse that technology, and, since people have been, can be, and will be harmed by abuses of that power, I tend to oppose the expansion of those powers.
And I would charge you with misunderstanding and misconstruing that statement, as well as what constitutes a safe and secure people.
What risks? How is your freedom impaired? There's no freedom from being identified in public. There's a certain balance between having a number of laws, and having those laws enforced. Do you know one person who hasn't broken any laws? Probably not; People regularly break the law without being aware of it. And ignorance isn't accepted as an excuse.
The problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced, when before only sufficiently important ones were. Sure, selective enforcement of different laws bites, but being hit with full enforcement of an encyclopedia of law will bite harder.
Who gives a fuck how fast the system shuts down? The thing will shut down eventually. Why sit there and wait for it? Who cares? Because sometimes, it doesn't, either because I selected the incorrect shutdown option, or because of some strange software conflict, or because a program insists on aborting the shutdown procedure until it finishes what it's working on.
Whatever the cause, sometimes the machine won't shut down when I want it to, so I have to stand around and make sure it does. And I'd like that shutdown to wait as little as possible.
Other than this stark presentation, there's no digestible information as to why the shell services DLL took over half a second longer to shut down. And there's no hint as to what to do about it. It's called debugging. You recognize a symptom, identify the problem, fix the problem. The software solves step 1; It recognizes when your computer is running slower than usual. Then it helps you with step 2; It gives you an idea of where to look to fix it.
Without the software, you'd still be wondering why your computer took a half-second longer to shut down, not why a particular process took longer. With the software, you can focus on the process, paying less attention to the computer as a whole.
The software doesn't fix your computer, it's a diagnostic aid.
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The drum came long after hard-wiring your programs.
I still miss ye olde textile pattern punch-cards.
It's rare that I meet anyone who knows of the Barsoom books. To think I was trying to describe them to someone only Saturday...
Their competencies vary by individual, but all have had above-average education. The fact that they have to grossly simplify their positions, even lie, in order to get elected only shows that the method of their selection is faulty, not necessarily the selection itself.
Any American-born citizen 35-years or older with enough charisma can get elected. It just happens that charisma isn't necessarily linked to the ability to lead intelligently. (Any leader has charisma, else he wouldn't have followers. That doesn't make him a good leader.)
There's plenty of oxygen in water; Just ask a fish.
You'll have to go down there to get his answer, though. Please patiently wait five minutes for the fish to respond...
My former roommate went to a Harry Potter party Friday night. While lots of folks were dressed up as Harry Potter characters, one person was walking around in a Sailor Moon outfit.
Now I'm wishing I'd gone...
It's tricky, for me. The first sci-fi I remember reading was the huge collection of 1970s Analog magazine issues my dad had in his library. Then I read Worthing Saga, followed by Ender's Game and Xenocide, Asimov's Lucky Starr series, and, finally, all of Heinlein's works, from his short story collection Expanded Universe to Stranger in a Strange Land through Time Enough for Love and I Will Fear No Evil.
Mind you, this was all between 1993 and 1996, when I was 10-13 years old...My mother would kick me off the computer to get me to go outside. I'd grab a book from our library and sit in the building stairwell. Later on, when I was 15 or 16, I started reading Niven. I barely skirted Known Space, and only read Ringworld, The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer.
By the time I got around to reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was to come out in a couple months. I only read it to find out what all the fuss was about. I read and enjoyed the first four books, but, for some reason, I didn't feel motivated to read the rest of the series. (Though I have listened to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. If you haven't listened to the audiobooks, you've missed what are quite possibly the best performances of the material.)
Eventually, my mother stopped kicking me off the computer, and I stopped reading anything that wasn't online. Until about a year ago, that is. I wound up checking a bunch of books out of the library to research info on Dyson spheres, and wound up checking out the remaining books of the Ringworld series in the process. Lots of fun.
According to Wikipedia, there are 17 candidates in phase I trials, four in phase I/II, and one in phase III.
That same article mentions that there is a great degree of diversity in HIV, meaning one HIV vaccine won't protect against all strains.
We don't call them "dudes," we call them gazebos, and shoot arrows at them.
Nah, you'll only get a half-life.
I'm one of those oddballs that enjoys knowing how a book ends before I read it all the way through; If I know certain characters don't show up in the final scene, I'm on edge throughout the whole book wondering when they die or otherwise drop out. That's where I get my suspense.
Mind you, I haven't actually read the book; A close friend read it, and I asked him for a summary at lunch today.
Just because you're a pothead doesn't mean you need to buy into all this tin hat conspiracy BS.
Nice ad hominem there. I've never smoked, probably never will.
The law will protect you from unlawful searches, meaning that you're not invincible to unlawful searches, but that you won't be convicted.
Only if you can afford a competent lawyer, and even then there's no guarantee. Otherwise, we wouldn't have an appeals system. And all that time, you're hemorrhaging money on legal representation while possibly spending time in jail, away from your job. Bills pile up. Reporters might start covering the case, leading to consequences when looking for future jobs. And for some crimes, you can forget any notion of a fair trial or coverage.
No, half of your "just because" points were invalid, like the mod chip, that is illegal for so many reasons. You can put a mod chip in a ham radio and broadcast on police frequencies, should that be legal too?
I intentionally included points that some folks would disagree with, as it's all a matter of perspective. By the way, modchips are only illegal because of the DMCA. (Is that "so many" reasons?) And you don't need to mod a ham radio to listen to police frequencies; They're already capable of tuning to those frequencies. All you need to be allowed to listen in on those frequencies is a ham license, and those are easy to come by. (I've been thinking of getting one myself, so I'll have a way to get emergency services if/when FiOS or Vonage-style services go down at the same time as cell service.)
The laws may not be catered to you, but they are catered to society. The reason the govt doesn't want you smoking pot all day is because it turns you into a welfare baby. Maybe not you personally, but others it certainly does and will. You're not allowed to have sex with children either, it may seem fine to you and the kid you're screwing, but society does not agree. Such a shame, isn't it?
The laws are not catered to society. That was my point in my original post. Laws are passed by politicians who are seeking to gain favor of vocal portions of the population. Most of those laws get enforced when possible by police. Many people ignore laws, because it's not possible for the police to enforce them 100% of the time, and they're willing to put up with the laws existing as long as they're not applied. See speed limit laws, for example. You tolerate them because they're not strictly enforced.
My arguments against mass-surveillance programs like London's and, now, New York's stem from the fact they must inevitably lead to stricter enforcement of inappropriate laws.
And what place is that? Anything but a school zone and you're fine going
In Walker, MI, traffic jams form behind police cars; When they pull you over, there's no talking your way out of a ticket. If your car isn't worth at least $10,000, you don't want to be caught driving in the residential portions of East Grand Rapids.
Oh yes, I vacationed in London last March. I rented a car and drove around, and I was nervous about that, but they don't give you a ticket unless you're going very fast, 10mph is not enough. I should know, because I was driving faster than the speed limit, along with the rest of the cars.
So? Their traffic cameras must be laxer than ones in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Flagging you for agressive behavior and shooting or arresting you for agressive behavior are two different things.
Your mention of shooting is a red herring. Yet while flagging and arresting are different, systems based on automated audiovisual surveillance will log these things, and that log will eventually show up as a blip on sufficiently-detailed background checks and data-mining investigations. Two or three times a year, we h
What of the projects on Google Code? Last I checked, I could select "GPL" as an advertised license, not "GPL 2" or "GPL 3".
Until people learn to put up with it. But I'm cynical...
Just because you don't rip the tags off mattresses doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't smoke in the privacy of your own home doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't store copies of your music on your iPod doesn't mean it should be illegal to do so. Just because you don't watch movies on Linux doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use off-brand ink cartridges doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't load your own ammunition for self defense doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use AdBlock doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use a mod chip in your console system doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't copy pages out of books at your local public library doesn't mean it should be illegal. Just because you don't use wifi on Linux doesn't mean it should be illegal.
And if you do do one of these things, it should be rather clear to you that just because the other guy doesn't do it, it shouldn't be illegal.
Am I getting through? The only crime I think I've ever committed were traffic violations. I always drive close to 10mph over and any cop who feels like giving me a hard time can pull me over and give me a ticket for 9mph over or whatever I'm going at the time. But they don't. Isn't that worth something? It means the police in the area you live in are more lenient than the police in some areas I've lived in. But that's irrelevant because... These people policing you are just that, people. ...policing won't always be handled by people. Haven't you ever heard of traffic cameras? Toll systems that automatically ticket you when they detect your average speed exceeded the speed limit? As I recall, Texas is implementing the latter, while the former is so common that articles about people fighting it show up every couple weeks on Fark.
And there have been recent articles on Slashdot about automated camera-based biometric recognition systems. I also recall mention of an automated system to be tested in London (Already! And they haven't had their camera system all that long!) that flags aggressive behavior on an automated basis.
Just because you don't roughhouse with your friends doesn't mean it should be illegal.
However, for someone as articulate and reasoned as you are, I'm surprised you would call anything permanent, even by implication. The only permanent safety we may reasonably expect is in death. Aside from possible grandiosity, why else do you think Patrick Henry might state a preference Death over Liberty?
And, to be sure, Franklin's use of the word "safety" is far different from what how it's used in terrorism debates. In Franklin's time, "safety" meant that one's position would be stable, not merely a guarantee of life and limb. To limit his use of the word "safety" to just the concept of health is to twist the meaning of his statement. Also, the extremely vague things you noted (situations that allow warrantless searches, pen register provisions which allow warrantless call logging, and large volumes of security cameras) were around long before 9/11 and long before Bush. That doesn't mean they're not an encroachment on our rights. It took well over fifty years and a civil war for the statement "All men are created equal" to be officially construed as applying to slaves. The fact that it wasn't applied as such didn't make laws enabling the concept of being someone's property by birth any more right. Yet another example of indicting technology for the sake of doing so, assuming the worst motivations on the part of people charged with the protection of the country and its people, and woefully - willfully? - misunderstanding and misconstruing the intentions of a statement by one of our founding fathers I don't indict technology. However, I fully expect people in positions of power to abuse that technology, and, since people have been, can be, and will be harmed by abuses of that power, I tend to oppose the expansion of those powers.
And I would charge you with misunderstanding and misconstruing that statement, as well as what constitutes a safe and secure people.
The problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced, when before only sufficiently important ones were. Sure, selective enforcement of different laws bites, but being hit with full enforcement of an encyclopedia of law will bite harder.
Wait...
Whatever the cause, sometimes the machine won't shut down when I want it to, so I have to stand around and make sure it does. And I'd like that shutdown to wait as little as possible.
It would have irritated me. When I shut down a computer, I'm ready to go. I don't like sitting around waiting for longer-than-usual shutdowns.
Without the software, you'd still be wondering why your computer took a half-second longer to shut down, not why a particular process took longer. With the software, you can focus on the process, paying less attention to the computer as a whole.
The software doesn't fix your computer, it's a diagnostic aid.