If UI is easy to quantify, please tell me exactly how the iphone's iPod interface is superior to most phones. I want hard numbers. How many units is coverflow worth? How many units is the customizable bar at the bottom of the screen worth? Don't forget the page transitions!
Did you mean to reply to me? I'm not the one claiming the Iphone's interface is better than every phone in existence. If I was making that claim of a phone, I would be sure to explain how.
The calculator didn't have a memory function.
Mine does. Far more importantly from an everyday UI point of view, it also has copy/paste for text.
I can also listen to music whilst charging. Sounds like you just got unlucky with a rubbish phone - just pick a better model next time rather than having to spend loads on an Iphone.
I've seen more TOLERANCE in the Boy Scouts than on this thread.
Since when does expressing one's opinion equal intolerance?
Has anyone been banned from Slashdot for stating that they're in the BSA?
This is their right.
By that logic, it's anyone's right to do anything. That doesn't mean we have to agree with it, or consider it a good thing, nor does it mean they cannot be criticised.
Efforts to discriminate aginst the Boyscouts Because of their moral beliefs sound strangly hollow when those who want their moral beliefs to be free of discrimination.
Who here has discriminated against the boy scouts, or suggested doing so?
Also, their youth protection guidelines come into play. I know of few parents that would feel comfortable knowing that young boys were in the keeping of homosexual leaders. This may be stereotyping, but that is the way most parents think.
Ah, here we are. Behind the "But it's their right, moral values" etc, is the "homosexuals are pedos" card. You're right, it is stereotyping - and it is discrimination. Just because it's supposedly how "most parents think" doesn't stop it being discrimination.
Yet,I have only met a precious few athiests that didn't attack religion with the same illogic, hate, and vitrol that the most zealous fundamentalists use in their own attacks.
Yeah, bloody Dawkins, always flying planes into buildings to make his point. Why can't he be like the religious fundamentalists, who simply write books using logic and reasoning to make their case, and who argue against a belief, rather than the person who holds that belief?
And I'm with you on the flambouyant homosexuals, what with them always shoving their relationships down people's throats with their wedding rings and flambouyant wedding ceremonies. Honestly, you never know that people are straight, they always keep it so quiet, and never show off in public with their partners.
Excluding someone doesn't make you a bigot, actually. From the dictionary: Bigot: noun Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion See, you can NOT agree with someone but still not hate them.
Sure, but what we're talking about here is not a "disagreement". Indeed, this situation would be if the BSA disagreed with homosexuality, but still didn't exclude homosexuals. That would be the "not agree but still accept them" stance that ought to be possible. But apparently it isn't possible for the BSA, which is why some people are likely to accuse them of bigotry. (And bigotry doesn't imply hate by the way - intolerance is sufficient, and kicking them out of your group certainly qualifies, I'd say.)
And that's exactly what people are saying - not to support it.
The poster you replied to expresses why he dislikes the actions of the BSA - I don't see that your response disagrees with anything he writes. He's not supporting the BSA, and he's expressing his opinions about it on Slashdot. Saying "It is what it is" is a tautology, it doesn't change any point being made, nor does it place the BSA above criticism.
However, all that I've found the Boy Scouts do is stand on their expressed belief system.
It's not hatemongering, but it's not merely a belief that should be respected either. It is discrimination, and it is legitimate to dislike it and question it, especially where young children are concerned. (Did anyone accuse them of hate, anyway?)
In a way, the fact that they're not violent hatemongers that are hated by society, but are respected people running a large organisation is what makes it more sinister. The hateful homophobes are generally not tolerated by anyone, but we must be wary of homophobia and discrimination that exists in mainstream organisations, under the veil that it is "their belief system". Belief systems that result in actions are legitimate targets of criticisms.
The point you are missing is they don't have to march against homosexuality - they are already in a privileged position where they can educate and influence large numbers of children to their ideals.
And where is anyone being bigots by reponding to this, as the title of your comment suggests? The reality is that whilst people may withhold actively helping them, hardly any software developers would go so far as to release software under a licence that prohibited being used by the BSA. I suspect many if not most people on Slashdot would actively oppose such a licence, even though they don't like the BSA.
What did you do? Jump up and down and scream and cry about how there is no God or did you go along and bow your head and wait for it to be over?
Er, do neither?
That's all you have to do in Scouts, too.
Nope, doing neither is not an option. Also, whilst it isn't a problem if a family member of someone at a baseball game happens to find out I'm an atheist, in the scouts, it means I risked being kicked out.
And when you consider the power and influence that religion has, I'd say it is a big lie. Or if you think it doesn't matter - are you saying that the Scouts' oath isn't important?
It's an interesting ploy to make out that gay people shouldn't be in scouting for their own good, because of all the homophobia present in the scouts... I can't help thinking they could be more upfront about this issue. Saying that homosexual children are banned is only going to fuel the homophobia further, and leave children confused about their sexuality when even the adults they are supposed to trust and respect are telling them it is wrong.
There is no need for me to bring up the abnormality of his sexuality, I'm sure he's smart enough to understand that the statistically normal condition is heterosexuality.
Wait - are you intentionally conflating two different meanings of "normal", or are you just at the abnormally low end of the IQ curve?
So please, one of you gay guys find a word to replace "straight".
Did this usage of "straight" come from the gay community? I don't know if it did, but it seems surprising, given that the word has connotations of being "normal", or as you say, "honest". The implication being that homosexuality/bisexuality are "bent", "abnormal", "dishonest" etc...
Did you tell him your opinion of him - that he shouldn't be allowed in the scouts, and you think he's not a normal man, and therefore must be trying to be a woman?
This is similar to the UK policy, which requires belief in any god, but supposedly it doesn't matter which one. On that note, I remember how here in the Girl Guides changed their oaths to say "my god" all the time (does FSM count, I wonder?)
In practice though, all of the prayers, worship and ceremonies made it clear this was the Christian God (and obviously polytheists and deists were right out of luck). It annoyed me that the attempt to be inclusive by saying "my/any god" was entirely superficial.
But I think it also annoys me that the scouts/guides changed their policy to be inclusive to a minority of non-Christian religious people in the UK, happily accepting them, whilst completely ignoring the far larger proportion of nontheists in the UK.
Don't get atheists and atheist extremists mixed up. I'm an atheist, which does not mean I believe there is no god - that *would* be a religion. I simply don't believe there is one.
I agree with your point about the distinction, but I wouldn't call them "extremists" just for having this belief! "Strong atheism" is a better term. Also, whilst it is a belief, that doesn't make it a religion (just as one can believe in god without being religious, e.g., Deists - or just as believing Unicorns don't exist doesn't mean you belong to a no-unicorn-religion...).
My kid goes into a private catholic school because it's the best school around here.
It's very sad though we live in a society where atheists have to make that choice, and children end up having to go through it; a child's education should be of utmost importance, and shouldn't be something they can be discriminated against based on religious belief.
Athiest, now, are generally the most adamant about making other people belive like them than the reverse (Dawkins, Brown, etc).
Yes, they write books hoping to persuade people based on their arguments - the horror!
Some of the most outspoken atheist have made statements to the effect that religon should be forced out of existance by the government through a muliplicty of methods (taxation, banning signage, criminalizing religious speech).
On that note, things may become worse now that the UK Government has decided to start criminalising adult porn(!). The scope of material that could be banned is far greater, especially due to the vagueness of the law (since the IWF will likely err on the side of caution, whether or not the material has been declared to be "extreme" in a court of law). There is also the point that unlike child porn, there is no divide between "extreme" adult porn and non-extreme porn (there is no legal or ethical consensus - it's only the UK Government that imagines this), so plenty of more mainstream sites risk getting banned because of a single naughty image that is too "extreme". The Register speculates on this issue.
So where's your evidence that companies are buying open source, where they would have been better off buying expensive closed source products?
There's nothing special about open source here - the same FUD could be said of any closed source product that is cheaper. But pointing out it is cheaper and that people are using it instead is the easy bit - it's up to you to prove that they would have been better off with the more expensive product.
There is nothing about a UI that makes it hard to quantify - you ought to be able to give solid examples ("If I want to do this feature, I do this and this"). A personal anecdote that you were unable to use features does not count, unless you explain why they are more accessible in the Iphone.
Typically IME it's hard to quantify because the reasons just don't exist (e.g., I remember being in a debate where someone claimed OS X was better because "it did drag and drop better". When pushed for examples, every single example they gave of drag and drop was one that was supported in other operating systems).
I use a whole range of features on my regular phone, so I guess you must have just got unlucky.
I don't have a RAZR, I have a phone that works fine.
But it's very telling that not a single person can give me a single feature that the Iphone has that other phones don't which leads me to suspect that the claims about it being so much better than all other phones are just FUD.
I mean, look at the hype over it getting 3G. Welcome to 2002!
If I were to get a new expensive phone, there are plenty of other smartphones to consider. It's a shame that Slashdot and the media isn't willing to tell us about them, instead giving free advertising to Apple everytime they say something.
Some places in the west don't have it so good as the US - here in the UK, Manhunt 2 was banned for adults. I believe it has finally been released, but only with a struggle - and the BBFC still has the power to censor films and computer games for adults. The UK Government has also recently criminalised simple possession of adult porn it considers "disgusting".
Also aren't there some weird laws regarding sex toys in some US states? Not to mention the laws on sexual acts that were only recently found unconstitutional.
You are right in that it's perhaps not as bad as them getting everything they want criminalised (which would include all sexual images, as well as all non-heterosexual sexual acts), but Governments are happy to give into them in some cases, especially when the material being banned targets a minority.
How on earth does that dispute what he said? He didn't say that marijuana has no effect whatsoever (not that I would trust an anonymous comment about a single anecdotal case that has no sign of a causal link!), he said the effects were no worse than legal drugs.
Of course I agree that the Bible is important as an historical document (I am not the one who is pro-censorship), but you are doing the classic pro-censorship trick: declaring that all "old" documents are exempt because they are of "historical" value, but saying there is "no reason" for any modern artwork to exist at all. This leads to the bizarre situation where any new work can be banned, even though similar levels of violence exist in historical works that are not banned.
Some of today's works will one day be historical documents - or they won't, if they are censored and burned by those who apply different standards.
Furthermore, despite the violence in the Bible, it specifically condemns violent and hateful behavior.
It is inconsistent, yes, but there are places where it encourages and glorifies violence. The Bible is not seen by Christians as merely an historical document: it is how we should live our life. Whilst modern violent films that people seek to ban are merely films about a story, the Bible urges people to behave in this way, and millions of people take this seriously.
I don't think the Bible should be banned at all, but the hypocrisy of religious people who seek to censor is worth noting.
However, I'm also not blind to the fact that things like pornography and violent, depraved music are psychologically harmful when regularly consumed.
{{citation needed}}
As for the difference between actively reading a book versus passively listening to violent material, I can see that, yes. So whilst reading the violent material in the Bible is okay, where does having religion preached at you stand?
Come to Jesus instead
Porn, like many things, can be an addiction to some. All addictions are serious issues - so I'm not sure replacing one addiction with another is helpful?
Slashdot Mirror
If UI is easy to quantify, please tell me exactly how the iphone's iPod interface is superior to most phones. I want hard numbers. How many units is coverflow worth? How many units is the customizable bar at the bottom of the screen worth? Don't forget the page transitions!
Did you mean to reply to me? I'm not the one claiming the Iphone's interface is better than every phone in existence. If I was making that claim of a phone, I would be sure to explain how.
The calculator didn't have a memory function.
Mine does. Far more importantly from an everyday UI point of view, it also has copy/paste for text.
I can also listen to music whilst charging. Sounds like you just got unlucky with a rubbish phone - just pick a better model next time rather than having to spend loads on an Iphone.
I've seen more TOLERANCE in the Boy Scouts than on this thread.
Since when does expressing one's opinion equal intolerance?
Has anyone been banned from Slashdot for stating that they're in the BSA?
This is their right.
By that logic, it's anyone's right to do anything. That doesn't mean we have to agree with it, or consider it a good thing, nor does it mean they cannot be criticised.
Efforts to discriminate aginst the Boyscouts Because of their moral beliefs sound strangly hollow when those who want their moral beliefs to be free of discrimination.
Who here has discriminated against the boy scouts, or suggested doing so?
Also, their youth protection guidelines come into play. I know of few parents that would feel comfortable knowing that young boys were in the keeping of homosexual leaders. This may be stereotyping, but that is the way most parents think.
Ah, here we are. Behind the "But it's their right, moral values" etc, is the "homosexuals are pedos" card. You're right, it is stereotyping - and it is discrimination. Just because it's supposedly how "most parents think" doesn't stop it being discrimination.
Yet,I have only met a precious few athiests that didn't attack religion with the same illogic, hate, and vitrol that the most zealous fundamentalists use in their own attacks.
Yeah, bloody Dawkins, always flying planes into buildings to make his point. Why can't he be like the religious fundamentalists, who simply write books using logic and reasoning to make their case, and who argue against a belief, rather than the person who holds that belief?
And I'm with you on the flambouyant homosexuals, what with them always shoving their relationships down people's throats with their wedding rings and flambouyant wedding ceremonies. Honestly, you never know that people are straight, they always keep it so quiet, and never show off in public with their partners.
Excluding someone doesn't make you a bigot, actually. From the dictionary: Bigot: noun Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion See, you can NOT agree with someone but still not hate them.
Sure, but what we're talking about here is not a "disagreement". Indeed, this situation would be if the BSA disagreed with homosexuality, but still didn't exclude homosexuals. That would be the "not agree but still accept them" stance that ought to be possible. But apparently it isn't possible for the BSA, which is why some people are likely to accuse them of bigotry. (And bigotry doesn't imply hate by the way - intolerance is sufficient, and kicking them out of your group certainly qualifies, I'd say.)
If you don't like it, don't support it.
And that's exactly what people are saying - not to support it.
The poster you replied to expresses why he dislikes the actions of the BSA - I don't see that your response disagrees with anything he writes. He's not supporting the BSA, and he's expressing his opinions about it on Slashdot. Saying "It is what it is" is a tautology, it doesn't change any point being made, nor does it place the BSA above criticism.
However, all that I've found the Boy Scouts do is stand on their expressed belief system.
It's not hatemongering, but it's not merely a belief that should be respected either. It is discrimination, and it is legitimate to dislike it and question it, especially where young children are concerned. (Did anyone accuse them of hate, anyway?)
In a way, the fact that they're not violent hatemongers that are hated by society, but are respected people running a large organisation is what makes it more sinister. The hateful homophobes are generally not tolerated by anyone, but we must be wary of homophobia and discrimination that exists in mainstream organisations, under the veil that it is "their belief system". Belief systems that result in actions are legitimate targets of criticisms.
The point you are missing is they don't have to march against homosexuality - they are already in a privileged position where they can educate and influence large numbers of children to their ideals.
And where is anyone being bigots by reponding to this, as the title of your comment suggests? The reality is that whilst people may withhold actively helping them, hardly any software developers would go so far as to release software under a licence that prohibited being used by the BSA. I suspect many if not most people on Slashdot would actively oppose such a licence, even though they don't like the BSA.
What did you do? Jump up and down and scream and cry about how there is no God or did you go along and bow your head and wait for it to be over?
Er, do neither?
That's all you have to do in Scouts, too.
Nope, doing neither is not an option. Also, whilst it isn't a problem if a family member of someone at a baseball game happens to find out I'm an atheist, in the scouts, it means I risked being kicked out.
And when you consider the power and influence that religion has, I'd say it is a big lie. Or if you think it doesn't matter - are you saying that the Scouts' oath isn't important?
I do not believe in God, but I just keep that private.
What about the oaths and so on? Do you manage to avoid saying them, or by "keep that private" do you mean "outright lie"?
it was his being an asshole during signup that kept him out.
You mean, being honest and open.
It's an interesting ploy to make out that gay people shouldn't be in scouting for their own good, because of all the homophobia present in the scouts... I can't help thinking they could be more upfront about this issue. Saying that homosexual children are banned is only going to fuel the homophobia further, and leave children confused about their sexuality when even the adults they are supposed to trust and respect are telling them it is wrong.
There is no need for me to bring up the abnormality of his sexuality, I'm sure he's smart enough to understand that the statistically normal condition is heterosexuality.
Wait - are you intentionally conflating two different meanings of "normal", or are you just at the abnormally low end of the IQ curve?
So please, one of you gay guys find a word to replace "straight".
Did this usage of "straight" come from the gay community? I don't know if it did, but it seems surprising, given that the word has connotations of being "normal", or as you say, "honest". The implication being that homosexuality/bisexuality are "bent", "abnormal", "dishonest" etc...
By this logic then, it should be okay for a single gay man to lead a girl scout troop (or a single gay woman to lead a boy scout troop).
Did you tell him your opinion of him - that he shouldn't be allowed in the scouts, and you think he's not a normal man, and therefore must be trying to be a woman?
This is similar to the UK policy, which requires belief in any god, but supposedly it doesn't matter which one. On that note, I remember how here in the Girl Guides changed their oaths to say "my god" all the time (does FSM count, I wonder?)
In practice though, all of the prayers, worship and ceremonies made it clear this was the Christian God (and obviously polytheists and deists were right out of luck). It annoyed me that the attempt to be inclusive by saying "my/any god" was entirely superficial.
But I think it also annoys me that the scouts/guides changed their policy to be inclusive to a minority of non-Christian religious people in the UK, happily accepting them, whilst completely ignoring the far larger proportion of nontheists in the UK.
Don't get atheists and atheist extremists mixed up. I'm an atheist, which does not mean I believe there is no god - that *would* be a religion. I simply don't believe there is one.
I agree with your point about the distinction, but I wouldn't call them "extremists" just for having this belief! "Strong atheism" is a better term. Also, whilst it is a belief, that doesn't make it a religion (just as one can believe in god without being religious, e.g., Deists - or just as believing Unicorns don't exist doesn't mean you belong to a no-unicorn-religion...).
My kid goes into a private catholic school because it's the best school around here.
It's very sad though we live in a society where atheists have to make that choice, and children end up having to go through it; a child's education should be of utmost importance, and shouldn't be something they can be discriminated against based on religious belief.
Athiest, now, are generally the most adamant about making other people belive like them than the reverse (Dawkins, Brown, etc).
Yes, they write books hoping to persuade people based on their arguments - the horror!
Some of the most outspoken atheist have made statements to the effect that religon should be forced out of existance by the government through a muliplicty of methods (taxation, banning signage, criminalizing religious speech).
Who has said this?
Agreed. In the UK, we have Cleanfeed. One problem is that blocked sites silently return "page not found".
On that note, things may become worse now that the UK Government has decided to start criminalising adult porn(!). The scope of material that could be banned is far greater, especially due to the vagueness of the law (since the IWF will likely err on the side of caution, whether or not the material has been declared to be "extreme" in a court of law). There is also the point that unlike child porn, there is no divide between "extreme" adult porn and non-extreme porn (there is no legal or ethical consensus - it's only the UK Government that imagines this), so plenty of more mainstream sites risk getting banned because of a single naughty image that is too "extreme". The Register speculates on this issue.
So where's your evidence that companies are buying open source, where they would have been better off buying expensive closed source products?
There's nothing special about open source here - the same FUD could be said of any closed source product that is cheaper. But pointing out it is cheaper and that people are using it instead is the easy bit - it's up to you to prove that they would have been better off with the more expensive product.
There is nothing about a UI that makes it hard to quantify - you ought to be able to give solid examples ("If I want to do this feature, I do this and this"). A personal anecdote that you were unable to use features does not count, unless you explain why they are more accessible in the Iphone.
Typically IME it's hard to quantify because the reasons just don't exist (e.g., I remember being in a debate where someone claimed OS X was better because "it did drag and drop better". When pushed for examples, every single example they gave of drag and drop was one that was supported in other operating systems).
I use a whole range of features on my regular phone, so I guess you must have just got unlucky.
I don't have a RAZR, I have a phone that works fine.
But it's very telling that not a single person can give me a single feature that the Iphone has that other phones don't which leads me to suspect that the claims about it being so much better than all other phones are just FUD.
I mean, look at the hype over it getting 3G. Welcome to 2002!
If I were to get a new expensive phone, there are plenty of other smartphones to consider. It's a shame that Slashdot and the media isn't willing to tell us about them, instead giving free advertising to Apple everytime they say something.
Some places in the west don't have it so good as the US - here in the UK, Manhunt 2 was banned for adults. I believe it has finally been released, but only with a struggle - and the BBFC still has the power to censor films and computer games for adults. The UK Government has also recently criminalised simple possession of adult porn it considers "disgusting".
Also aren't there some weird laws regarding sex toys in some US states? Not to mention the laws on sexual acts that were only recently found unconstitutional.
You are right in that it's perhaps not as bad as them getting everything they want criminalised (which would include all sexual images, as well as all non-heterosexual sexual acts), but Governments are happy to give into them in some cases, especially when the material being banned targets a minority.
How on earth does that dispute what he said? He didn't say that marijuana has no effect whatsoever (not that I would trust an anonymous comment about a single anecdotal case that has no sign of a causal link!), he said the effects were no worse than legal drugs.
Of course I agree that the Bible is important as an historical document (I am not the one who is pro-censorship), but you are doing the classic pro-censorship trick: declaring that all "old" documents are exempt because they are of "historical" value, but saying there is "no reason" for any modern artwork to exist at all. This leads to the bizarre situation where any new work can be banned, even though similar levels of violence exist in historical works that are not banned.
Some of today's works will one day be historical documents - or they won't, if they are censored and burned by those who apply different standards.
Furthermore, despite the violence in the Bible, it specifically condemns violent and hateful behavior.
It is inconsistent, yes, but there are places where it encourages and glorifies violence. The Bible is not seen by Christians as merely an historical document: it is how we should live our life. Whilst modern violent films that people seek to ban are merely films about a story, the Bible urges people to behave in this way, and millions of people take this seriously.
I don't think the Bible should be banned at all, but the hypocrisy of religious people who seek to censor is worth noting.
As I suspected - the Iphone has no better functionality then.
It's interesting how certain people talk about how Iphone is so much better, but there is a curious silence when anyone asks for actual details.
So tell me what this ten times the functionality is?
However, I'm also not blind to the fact that things like pornography and violent, depraved music are psychologically harmful when regularly consumed.
{{citation needed}}
As for the difference between actively reading a book versus passively listening to violent material, I can see that, yes. So whilst reading the violent material in the Bible is okay, where does having religion preached at you stand?
Come to Jesus instead
Porn, like many things, can be an addiction to some. All addictions are serious issues - so I'm not sure replacing one addiction with another is helpful?