A more corrent label would be "a political system that prevents tyranny of the majority and protects the rights of the minority". But that's too long. So maybe you're right, we should just call it "fascism" instead.
it probably has more to do with the fact that older, more experienced programmers, because of their experience, will command a higher salary
I think that's probably true, and I believe it's true for people other than just coders. Older teachers, for example, have a hard time getting jobs. My mother took about 15 years off of teaching to raise her kids. When she went back and tried to find a job (in her mid-40's), she found that she kept getting passed up for 22-year-old kids fresh out of college. Why? Because with her master's degree and beyond education, she's a lot more expensive than some kid who's barely done with her student teaching.
Of course, once she got hired (teaching computer applications and basic programming, no less), I think she gave the school district a pretty good deal for their money. She works 70-80 hour weeks (during the school year; only about 30-40 hour weeks during the summer), in addition to taking about 4 credits/semester at the local community college to keep her knowledge base up to date (after all, she learned to code on punch cards...), and is completely and totally devoted to her students.
It seems to me that this holds true in most occupations...In general, the older generation is more skilled, if only because of experience, and more devoted to their work, because they've had the time to figure out that this really is what they love. To make broad generalizations, older, more experienced workers tend to be more devoted to the project, while young punks (which I lump myself into, being a 19-year-old college student) tend to be more self-centric. I tell you, most of the people I've interacted with in my engineering classes are not people I'd trust my life to (in the case of bridges or buildings) or my data to (in the case of programmers). Of course, that appearance could just be due to the fact that the weak have been winnowed out of the older batch already. There could be just as much talent, devotion, and potential among the younger generation, but the signal is lost in the noise of, "yeah! computers! I'm gonna get rich! I'm 3133t!"
I should hope that (though I'm probably wrong) any rollercoaster would be built in such a way that, even if whatever was controlling it crashed, it wouldn't fly off the tracks....Of course, coming back to the station would be rough if the brakes didn't fire....
Actually, I'm surprised I haven't been moderated down as flamebait yet...
And MSU *does* suck; the only reason to go there is if you enjoy getting in drunken riots and having tear gas shot at you. (lets see if I can get two posts in a row moderated down as flamebait) I know people from MSU who consider bruises from tear gas canisters to be status symbols...
OSU is a pretty decent school, but the U of M (where I go) is in-state tuition and the hockey games are more fun to watch. (okay, not the real reasons for my choice) Plus, OSU doesn't have such wonders as the Hash Bash and the Naked Mile.
What I'm getting to is that the anti-christ will be able to use technology to become a god. He will use the media to make him famous even worshiped overnight.
Read "If this goes on..." by Robert A. Heinlein. It's a story which can be found in the book Revolt in 2100. It's about a revolution which occurs in America at the end of the coming century to overthrow the totalitarian theocracy which came into power in the beginning of the century. The theocracy is a massive propaganda machine which uses mass media to exert its influence over the populace. The rebels use this media to overthrow the government; at the time when the Prophet (dictatorial leader) is to perform his Miracle (a yearly televised event in which the Prophet is possessed by the First Prophet; founder of the theocracy) the rebels doctor the broadcast. The First Prophet takes over the body of the Prophet...and instructs the populace to rise up against the heretical government, who have blasphemed the true faith. This is followed by mass chaos as the devout (particularly those within the military) rise up against those in power...Perhaps not the anti-christ using technology to become a god (and definitely off-topic), but an excellent story of how reliance on and devotion to the media can be a double-edged sword.
I recall hearing something on NPR last summer about a smallish company on the Atlantic coast (Maine? Massachusetts?) who made fishing nets. I can't remember if it was because they went public or because someone suddenly noticed them, but their stock values skyrocketed one day "because the company name included the word 'net'". That seems truly silly to me...
I can't believe that any true geek can appreciate playstation/n64's way of multiplay...
I actually consider multiplayer Goldeneye (the 4-way split you complain of) to be the only redeeming factor of an N64. I'm not a big fan of 1st person shooters in general (give me Civ:CTP or SMAC anyday), but multiplayer Bond is great. There's something to be said for being able to trashtalk the people you're playing against because they're sitting right next to you...The stress-relief factor of 1st person shooters is increased greatly when you can yell at each other as you open fire...
Along these lines...I saw a commercial for Quake on N64/PlayStation the other day, and thought I noticed a screenshot of splitscreen multiplayer. I wasn't actually paying attention, though; can anyone tell me if Quake for N64 has this feature?
I think the idea of a cryogenic, genetic Noah's Ark is a good one, though for a different reason.
Eventually (I hope) we're going to be heading out to other planets and colonizing the universe. Assuming that there isn't already an atmosphere and life there, we're going to have to terraform the planets we want to live on. Which means we're going to need to take along our own ecosystems. And bottling up a square mile of rainforest will kill your cargo space pretty quickly. Instead, we should take genetic samples of everything on earth. Then we can pack a cloning lab and cases of genetic material in our colony ships, so that they can create the flora and fauna when they get there. Much more space/mass efficient than "cold-sleep" or anything of the sort.
Of course, there are a few problems with this.
1. We don't yet understand too well how everything in nature gets along. We'd have to create all of the appropriate bacteria and fungi and all those other microscopic lifeforms that we don't normally think about but which are a crucial part of the ecosystem.
2. Learned behavior would be lost. But how many animals have a significant amount of learned behavior in the first place? Instinct would be preserved, but we would want to find some way to teach the learned behavior.
2a. How appropriate would earthly learned behavior be on a planet with, say, 3 times our gravity? I imagine getting birds to fly in such an environment would be much harder than just teaching them.
Maybe we're the way life has found to come back. Just a random thought that smacks of determinism, but perhaps nature's way-finding skills are far beyond the mere feat of temporary gender-toggling, and include the patience to allow a species to advance to a point where it can clone the other species.
And, as I have asked in a previous message, what's wrong with JP anyway? If you'll recall, all of the problems on the island were caused either by Hammond's attitude (aren't these fun toys?) or Nedry's greed (let's turn off the safety system so we can make a few million). The cloning of the dinosaurs simply made the punishment for their errors swift and harsh. I think that if someone a little more down-to-earth had been in charge of JP (perhaps the Australian (?) hunter guy) then things would have gone much more smoothly.
Which Jurassic Park consequences are you talking about? Perhaps the consequences of carnivores eating meat? Yeah, real ecological tragedy there. The problems in that movie came about not because Hammond "tampered with nature", but because he thought of a Tyrannosaurus Rex as a cute toy and money-making endeavor, and because Nedry was money-hungry. All of the problems in that movie/book were caused by greed and ignorance, not by the cloning itself.
As for Gattica, and people with defects being considered "less than human", I invite you to spend some time observing people today. (in America; I don't know if this holds true in other countries) Listen to reports of people getting pulled over by police for DWB (driving while black). Watch tv news reports of white supremacist churches. Visit a junior high, and look at how the fat kids are treated, or how the ones with thick glasses are treated. All the horror of Gattaca exists today. And we don't even see people as less than human because they have "defects". We look down on them simply because they are visibly different from us.
Well, I believe they're talking about how much television is watched in the home...Which, in a family of five (like mine) would average 2 hours each. And I know lots of people who watch 2 hours of tv a day.
Isn't the Linux community about cooperating and building tools and such that complement eachother?
Perhaps it is, but Red Hat is a business. And business and capitalism are about making money. And if Red Hat can make money by writing their own stuff, while contributing that stuff back to the community at large, more power to them! They've managed to bridge the gap.
Why are we now competing?
Because competition breeds a better product. I suppose we *could* all just sit around and work on one language nice and cooperative-like, but then we'd have exactly one language that we would try to use for everything. Which is very much against the spirit of "use the right tool for the job". A variety of languages, a variety of distros, a variety of applications is beneficial to the linux community. We have more tools to do the job with, as well as having more source available to look at, to learn from, and to use. Or, on the other hand, we could have exactly one distro, one language, and one application with which we would do everything. Whenever we needed new functionality, we'd just tack it on, thus cooperating to build a product. Wait, isn't that what Winxx + MSIE + Office is? One monstrous product that does everything, and in the meantime eats all of my system resources? Hmmm...I thought that was one of the things we were trying to avoid.
the Microsoft of Linux (granted its not a perfect parallel, but be imaginative).
I'll grant you this much, you *do* have an active imagination...But please don't use it to make silly claims. Making money != Microsoft. Last I heard, Linux was under an open source/free software type license. Which means that Red Hat will continue to be a contributer to the community as long as they distribute Linux or GNU based software. They may become "money-hungry competitors", but they'll still be contributing.
kids in general would be better off just reading plain old books than relying on the internet for information
Which limits a kid to learning about topics on which he has access to books on. And, while I'll agree that the 'net doesn't have *everything*, it definitely has more information on a broader range of topics than the average family's home library (or school library or even city library). Sure, kids could read a newspaper for current events...Or they could read it on cnn.com, then read related articles from the archives (much, MUCH easier than storing years of back issues of the newspaper) and then hit their search engine of choice for further information if that doesn't satify them. With the 'net, you can always find something more on a topic, if you dig for it. Books are valuable, but the 'net allows kids to do further research on something they read about.
Have your child use aol to talk with his/her friends about what they are going to do later on that night isn't exactly of much educational value
Possibly true, but it certainly has more educational value than talking to his/her friends on the phone would. If a child is going to talk to friends (and he *is*), then AOL at least lets them practice their reading and writing while they do it. The telephone has no such benefits, unless they're talking in a second language or something.
Search engines aren't of any real help,a nd you could find the information you need much more quickly searching at a library (or asking the librarian:).
Riiiight. And all libraries have every book and publication you want. I worked at the local library for a while in high school. It was a decent library, for a town with a population of less than 10k, but it still had a pretty sparse collection. Once the interlibrary loan program started, it was much easier to get a book, but you still had to know what you were looking for, and a librarian isn't much help when you're looking for materials he/she has never had contact with. Sure, you can search for books by keyword, but Google (or any other search engine) is a much more precise instrument for searching that is a card catalog (even an automated one). The librarians often asked me for help when the library had no local materials on a subject a kid was researching, and I was able to get online and find *something* for them. Even if it wasn't a comprehensive source of information on the topic, it was at least a source of information. Also, interlibrary loan doesn't work too well when you have a report due this Friday and the books aren't guaranteed to come in before that.
I personally think the internet is just another form of entertainment (like t.v. and radio).
Well, in that case I'm sorry for you. Maybe I should hook you up with some of the kids I know so that they can teach you how to use it for educational purposes.
It won't do "what he wants" in the least, assuming it to be an ad filter. (I admit I didn't check the page)
He doesn't care about seeing the ads themselves so much as he cares about the very existance of the ads. He's worried about the advertisements jeopardizing the impartiality of the website.
What if Microsoft said, "Rob...We'll give you [insane amount of money] if you delete any post that bashes Microsoft or praises Linux." If Slashdot is dependant upon advertising dollars for its existance, and Rob needs that money, then he has a choice. He can either accept it -- and the strings attached to it -- or he can let Slashdot die. Neither of those are very appealing options to me. But if Slashdot *wasn't* dependant upon ad revenue, and in fact didn't even *need* ad revenue, then companies couldn't bribe Rob into slanting things their way. Whether or not you see the ads has absolutely no bearing on whether or not their presence affects impartiality of the site.
Now, delving slightly off-topic, I am of the school of thought that feels ad filters hurt the site. If a site like Slashdot has ads, it's because it needs the money to run. Companies pay for those ads based on how many times they think the ad is going to be viewed. If, say, 75% of the viewers of a page are filtering out that ad, then companies are going to question the value of buying that ad. I've only got a 26.4k connection at home (absolutely abysmal phone lines in my area), yet I don't use ad filters, and I even clickthrough ads once in a while, even if I have no real interest what they're advertising, in order to support the site. I value Slashdot enough to spare a minute of my time encouraging the purchasers of ads that it's a worthwhile endeavor.
Overall, though, I agree with the original poster in this thread, who said that he would be willing to pay a small subscription fee, and would be willing to allow free-riders, in exchange for releasing Slashdot from a need to carry ads. I suppose it would be more of a donation than a subscription fee, but $5-10 annually would be a small price to pay for a trusted source of "news for nerds".
Having arrived at this conclusion (a benevolent dictatorship is best) independantly (read as: I have no real credentials, just the results of my own pondering), I think he means "best for everyone".
Someone who has ultimate and complete power (a "dictator"; I believe in ancient Athens they were "tyrants"?) could make any change he/she/they so desired. If they always made decisions with no motivation but the good (both in terms of rights and in terms of actual well-being) of the people, then they would be the best possible government.
Now we just have to find people who don't follow the model of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and who are omniscient enough to realize what is the "good" thing to do in any situation.
Re:water density (still totally off-topic)
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IANA Deploying IPv6
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Actually, all fluids (fluid = gas or liquid) can compress...It's very much harder to compress water than it is water vapor. If you squeeze a water balloon, it will bulge out in other places, but if you put pressure on all points of the water balloon at the same time, you could compress it. Now, when you go underwater, you have all the water above you pressing down upon you, which gets heavy fast. (I seem to remember that you increase by 1 atmospheric pressure unit for every 33 feet (10-ish meters) of water above you, but that memory is many years old and could be wrong) All that pressure from the water above doesn't really give the water underneath anywhere to go, so it compresses as pressure increases.
Yeah, you should follow the "obnoxious morning radio show" format...One semi-obnoxious guy, one very-obnoxious guy, and one female straightman. Woman. Whatever.
Now the only question is, which one of you gets the operation? New Slashdot poll?
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing....But then, that's hardly a fault of this particular software, now is it?
I'm sure some people would. And they'd be wrong.
A more corrent label would be "a political system that prevents tyranny of the majority and protects the rights of the minority". But that's too long. So maybe you're right, we should just call it "fascism" instead.
I think that's probably true, and I believe it's true for people other than just coders. Older teachers, for example, have a hard time getting jobs. My mother took about 15 years off of teaching to raise her kids. When she went back and tried to find a job (in her mid-40's), she found that she kept getting passed up for 22-year-old kids fresh out of college. Why? Because with her master's degree and beyond education, she's a lot more expensive than some kid who's barely done with her student teaching.
Of course, once she got hired (teaching computer applications and basic programming, no less), I think she gave the school district a pretty good deal for their money. She works 70-80 hour weeks (during the school year; only about 30-40 hour weeks during the summer), in addition to taking about 4 credits/semester at the local community college to keep her knowledge base up to date (after all, she learned to code on punch cards...), and is completely and totally devoted to her students.
It seems to me that this holds true in most occupations...In general, the older generation is more skilled, if only because of experience, and more devoted to their work, because they've had the time to figure out that this really is what they love. To make broad generalizations, older, more experienced workers tend to be more devoted to the project, while young punks (which I lump myself into, being a 19-year-old college student) tend to be more self-centric. I tell you, most of the people I've interacted with in my engineering classes are not people I'd trust my life to (in the case of bridges or buildings) or my data to (in the case of programmers). Of course, that appearance could just be due to the fact that the weak have been winnowed out of the older batch already. There could be just as much talent, devotion, and potential among the younger generation, but the signal is lost in the noise of, "yeah! computers! I'm gonna get rich! I'm 3133t!"
Okay, I'll quit rambling now...
I should hope that (though I'm probably wrong) any rollercoaster would be built in such a way that, even if whatever was controlling it crashed, it wouldn't fly off the tracks....Of course, coming back to the station would be rough if the brakes didn't fire....
Actually, I'm surprised I haven't been moderated down as flamebait yet...
And MSU *does* suck; the only reason to go there is if you enjoy getting in drunken riots and having tear gas shot at you. (lets see if I can get two posts in a row moderated down as flamebait) I know people from MSU who consider bruises from tear gas canisters to be status symbols...
OSU is a pretty decent school, but the U of M (where I go) is in-state tuition and the hockey games are more fun to watch. (okay, not the real reasons for my choice) Plus, OSU doesn't have such wonders as the Hash Bash and the Naked Mile.
Ah, one of the best reasons to live in Michigan...(yeah, I know it's not in Michigan, but who wants to live in Ohio, anyways?)
Read "If this goes on..." by Robert A. Heinlein. It's a story which can be found in the book Revolt in 2100. It's about a revolution which occurs in America at the end of the coming century to overthrow the totalitarian theocracy which came into power in the beginning of the century. The theocracy is a massive propaganda machine which uses mass media to exert its influence over the populace. The rebels use this media to overthrow the government; at the time when the Prophet (dictatorial leader) is to perform his Miracle (a yearly televised event in which the Prophet is possessed by the First Prophet; founder of the theocracy) the rebels doctor the broadcast. The First Prophet takes over the body of the Prophet...and instructs the populace to rise up against the heretical government, who have blasphemed the true faith. This is followed by mass chaos as the devout (particularly those within the military) rise up against those in power...Perhaps not the anti-christ using technology to become a god (and definitely off-topic), but an excellent story of how reliance on and devotion to the media can be a double-edged sword.
Somehow the CEO of a company that sells mp3-ripping software doesn't seem like the most objective source to me...
I recall hearing something on NPR last summer about a smallish company on the Atlantic coast (Maine? Massachusetts?) who made fishing nets. I can't remember if it was because they went public or because someone suddenly noticed them, but their stock values skyrocketed one day "because the company name included the word 'net'". That seems truly silly to me...
I actually consider multiplayer Goldeneye (the 4-way split you complain of) to be the only redeeming factor of an N64. I'm not a big fan of 1st person shooters in general (give me Civ:CTP or SMAC anyday), but multiplayer Bond is great. There's something to be said for being able to trashtalk the people you're playing against because they're sitting right next to you...The stress-relief factor of 1st person shooters is increased greatly when you can yell at each other as you open fire...
Along these lines...I saw a commercial for Quake on N64/PlayStation the other day, and thought I noticed a screenshot of splitscreen multiplayer. I wasn't actually paying attention, though; can anyone tell me if Quake for N64 has this feature?
I think the idea of a cryogenic, genetic Noah's Ark is a good one, though for a different reason.
Eventually (I hope) we're going to be heading out to other planets and colonizing the universe. Assuming that there isn't already an atmosphere and life there, we're going to have to terraform the planets we want to live on. Which means we're going to need to take along our own ecosystems. And bottling up a square mile of rainforest will kill your cargo space pretty quickly. Instead, we should take genetic samples of everything on earth. Then we can pack a cloning lab and cases of genetic material in our colony ships, so that they can create the flora and fauna when they get there. Much more space/mass efficient than "cold-sleep" or anything of the sort.
Of course, there are a few problems with this.
1. We don't yet understand too well how everything in nature gets along. We'd have to create all of the appropriate bacteria and fungi and all those other microscopic lifeforms that we don't normally think about but which are a crucial part of the ecosystem.
2. Learned behavior would be lost. But how many animals have a significant amount of learned behavior in the first place? Instinct would be preserved, but we would want to find some way to teach the learned behavior.
2a. How appropriate would earthly learned behavior be on a planet with, say, 3 times our gravity? I imagine getting birds to fly in such an environment would be much harder than just teaching them.
Maybe we're the way life has found to come back. Just a random thought that smacks of determinism, but perhaps nature's way-finding skills are far beyond the mere feat of temporary gender-toggling, and include the patience to allow a species to advance to a point where it can clone the other species.
And, as I have asked in a previous message, what's wrong with JP anyway? If you'll recall, all of the problems on the island were caused either by Hammond's attitude (aren't these fun toys?) or Nedry's greed (let's turn off the safety system so we can make a few million). The cloning of the dinosaurs simply made the punishment for their errors swift and harsh. I think that if someone a little more down-to-earth had been in charge of JP (perhaps the Australian (?) hunter guy) then things would have gone much more smoothly.
Being a furry and a transformationist Ignorant question time....What are a furry and a transformationist?
Which Jurassic Park consequences are you talking about? Perhaps the consequences of carnivores eating meat? Yeah, real ecological tragedy there. The problems in that movie came about not because Hammond "tampered with nature", but because he thought of a Tyrannosaurus Rex as a cute toy and money-making endeavor, and because Nedry was money-hungry. All of the problems in that movie/book were caused by greed and ignorance, not by the cloning itself.
As for Gattica, and people with defects being considered "less than human", I invite you to spend some time observing people today. (in America; I don't know if this holds true in other countries) Listen to reports of people getting pulled over by police for DWB (driving while black). Watch tv news reports of white supremacist churches. Visit a junior high, and look at how the fat kids are treated, or how the ones with thick glasses are treated. All the horror of Gattaca exists today. And we don't even see people as less than human because they have "defects". We look down on them simply because they are visibly different from us.
I'd flame you, but it appears you're expecting me to, so I assume you already know what I'd say if I did. So it's not worth my time to do so.
I do have a question, though...If adapting to an environment isn't evolution, then what is?
Not since I took a journalism class in which we were told that all writing done for a newspaper should be at the 6th grade reading level...
Well, I believe they're talking about how much television is watched in the home...Which, in a family of five (like mine) would average 2 hours each. And I know lots of people who watch 2 hours of tv a day.
Well, I would say without a doubt that 1+1=2. So you see, the 8-ball was right.
Perhaps it is, but Red Hat is a business. And business and capitalism are about making money. And if Red Hat can make money by writing their own stuff, while contributing that stuff back to the community at large, more power to them! They've managed to bridge the gap.
Why are we now competing?
Because competition breeds a better product. I suppose we *could* all just sit around and work on one language nice and cooperative-like, but then we'd have exactly one language that we would try to use for everything. Which is very much against the spirit of "use the right tool for the job". A variety of languages, a variety of distros, a variety of applications is beneficial to the linux community. We have more tools to do the job with, as well as having more source available to look at, to learn from, and to use. Or, on the other hand, we could have exactly one distro, one language, and one application with which we would do everything. Whenever we needed new functionality, we'd just tack it on, thus cooperating to build a product. Wait, isn't that what Winxx + MSIE + Office is? One monstrous product that does everything, and in the meantime eats all of my system resources? Hmmm...I thought that was one of the things we were trying to avoid.
the Microsoft of Linux (granted its not a perfect parallel, but be imaginative).
I'll grant you this much, you *do* have an active imagination...But please don't use it to make silly claims. Making money != Microsoft. Last I heard, Linux was under an open source/free software type license. Which means that Red Hat will continue to be a contributer to the community as long as they distribute Linux or GNU based software. They may become "money-hungry competitors", but they'll still be contributing.
Which limits a kid to learning about topics on which he has access to books on. And, while I'll agree that the 'net doesn't have *everything*, it definitely has more information on a broader range of topics than the average family's home library (or school library or even city library). Sure, kids could read a newspaper for current events...Or they could read it on cnn.com, then read related articles from the archives (much, MUCH easier than storing years of back issues of the newspaper) and then hit their search engine of choice for further information if that doesn't satify them. With the 'net, you can always find something more on a topic, if you dig for it. Books are valuable, but the 'net allows kids to do further research on something they read about.
Have your child use aol to talk with his/her friends about what they are going to do later on that night isn't exactly of much educational value
Possibly true, but it certainly has more educational value than talking to his/her friends on the phone would. If a child is going to talk to friends (and he *is*), then AOL at least lets them practice their reading and writing while they do it. The telephone has no such benefits, unless they're talking in a second language or something.
Search engines aren't of any real help,a nd you could find the information you need much more quickly searching at a library (or asking the librarian :).
Riiiight. And all libraries have every book and publication you want. I worked at the local library for a while in high school. It was a decent library, for a town with a population of less than 10k, but it still had a pretty sparse collection. Once the interlibrary loan program started, it was much easier to get a book, but you still had to know what you were looking for, and a librarian isn't much help when you're looking for materials he/she has never had contact with. Sure, you can search for books by keyword, but Google (or any other search engine) is a much more precise instrument for searching that is a card catalog (even an automated one). The librarians often asked me for help when the library had no local materials on a subject a kid was researching, and I was able to get online and find *something* for them. Even if it wasn't a comprehensive source of information on the topic, it was at least a source of information. Also, interlibrary loan doesn't work too well when you have a report due this Friday and the books aren't guaranteed to come in before that.
I personally think the internet is just another form of entertainment (like t.v. and radio).
Well, in that case I'm sorry for you. Maybe I should hook you up with some of the kids I know so that they can teach you how to use it for educational purposes.
It won't do "what he wants" in the least, assuming it to be an ad filter. (I admit I didn't check the page)
He doesn't care about seeing the ads themselves so much as he cares about the very existance of the ads. He's worried about the advertisements jeopardizing the impartiality of the website.
What if Microsoft said, "Rob...We'll give you [insane amount of money] if you delete any post that bashes Microsoft or praises Linux." If Slashdot is dependant upon advertising dollars for its existance, and Rob needs that money, then he has a choice. He can either accept it -- and the strings attached to it -- or he can let Slashdot die. Neither of those are very appealing options to me. But if Slashdot *wasn't* dependant upon ad revenue, and in fact didn't even *need* ad revenue, then companies couldn't bribe Rob into slanting things their way. Whether or not you see the ads has absolutely no bearing on whether or not their presence affects impartiality of the site.
Now, delving slightly off-topic, I am of the school of thought that feels ad filters hurt the site. If a site like Slashdot has ads, it's because it needs the money to run. Companies pay for those ads based on how many times they think the ad is going to be viewed. If, say, 75% of the viewers of a page are filtering out that ad, then companies are going to question the value of buying that ad. I've only got a 26.4k connection at home (absolutely abysmal phone lines in my area), yet I don't use ad filters, and I even clickthrough ads once in a while, even if I have no real interest what they're advertising, in order to support the site. I value Slashdot enough to spare a minute of my time encouraging the purchasers of ads that it's a worthwhile endeavor.
Overall, though, I agree with the original poster in this thread, who said that he would be willing to pay a small subscription fee, and would be willing to allow free-riders, in exchange for releasing Slashdot from a need to carry ads. I suppose it would be more of a donation than a subscription fee, but $5-10 annually would be a small price to pay for a trusted source of "news for nerds".
Having arrived at this conclusion (a benevolent dictatorship is best) independantly (read as: I have no real credentials, just the results of my own pondering), I think he means "best for everyone".
Someone who has ultimate and complete power (a "dictator"; I believe in ancient Athens they were "tyrants"?) could make any change he/she/they so desired. If they always made decisions with no motivation but the good (both in terms of rights and in terms of actual well-being) of the people, then they would be the best possible government.
Now we just have to find people who don't follow the model of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and who are omniscient enough to realize what is the "good" thing to do in any situation.
Well, duh...Energy weapons. :)
Actually, all fluids (fluid = gas or liquid) can compress...It's very much harder to compress water than it is water vapor. If you squeeze a water balloon, it will bulge out in other places, but if you put pressure on all points of the water balloon at the same time, you could compress it. Now, when you go underwater, you have all the water above you pressing down upon you, which gets heavy fast. (I seem to remember that you increase by 1 atmospheric pressure unit for every 33 feet (10-ish meters) of water above you, but that memory is many years old and could be wrong) All that pressure from the water above doesn't really give the water underneath anywhere to go, so it compresses as pressure increases.
Yeah, you should follow the "obnoxious morning radio show" format...One semi-obnoxious guy, one very-obnoxious guy, and one female straightman. Woman. Whatever.
Now the only question is, which one of you gets the operation? New Slashdot poll?