Sure, there's an argument for a Government-backed cheap ID card, optional for those people who don't have other forms of ID.
But that's nothing to do with the proposed ID card in the UK.
I mean, why don't you just get a passport if you want ID? The ID card will be about the same price, and more hassle to obtain (what with all the biometric checks). Why would you be happy to carry an ID card all the time, but not a passport?
And with it being compulsory, everyone who already has ID has to pay out again.
If we were just picking up people at random for no reason at all I might -- might -- agree with you. However, we are not. If you're one of the naive souls who thinks those insurgents in Guantanamo are just clean-living, innocent, totally-not-at-fault humans who just happend to fall under the heel of the evil, despotic, brutal, imperialistic U.S. forces, you're beyond reasoning with. You're also delusional, but that's beside the point.
They were found guilty of this in court? No they weren't - it is you who is delusional. The point is, we don't know whether they are terrorists, otherwise bad people, or not.
This statement is what's commonly referred to as a non sequitur, meaning it's something that doesn't logically follow what was said before. You claim that since the Geneva Convention doesn't apply that somehow the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply? That's so absurd I'm not sure how to even reply to it.
This statement is what is commonly referred to as a strawman, since I never claimed that. The word "nor" does not mean "therefore".
What I am saying is this: Even if we say that neither the US protections, nor (that's "nor", not "therefore") the Geneva Convention apply, this doesn't mean that it's okay. You might be able to say that it's not illegal, if there aren't any international agreements against it, but I don't think legality really applies well in this case - that certainly doesn't mean it's morally okay.
Also, you have to accept that it's just as "legal" whenever US citizens are captured and taken hostage by other countries or organisations. Oddly, people never seem to argue this...
You seem to misunderstand the difference between taking a civilian like Daniel Pearl hostage (you know, the journalist who had his living head hacked off his body as a tribute to Allah by those wonderful peaceful Muslims you're so eager to defend) and a recognized member of the U.S. military. I've got news for you: the laws of war do not allow for the indiscriminate targeting of civilians for the purpose of terror (i.e. the London tube bombings, 9/11, etc.)
Okay, so if members of the US Military were taken hostage from their homes in the US, that would be okay?
Also, you've contradicted yourself - first you say that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply because they aren't part of a military, but now you say that they aren't civilians, because they defended their homes. So, if we're talking about US citizens being taken hostage, would you say it would be okay if those US citizens had tried to defend themselves (by doing so, they would no longer be civilians, and since they aren't in uniform, they would be "illegal combatants")?
And please tell me where these people have been found guilty of connections with terrorism.
You have fallen into the liberal mindset of moral equivalence. You think that when Al-Queada detonates a carbomb killing 80 Iraqi civilians, it's no different than when a U.S. military jet drops a bomb and blows away 80 Al-Queada terrorists. Again, if this is your deranged mindset, you're beyond reasoning with. Logic is not in you.
This is what is commonly referred to as a strawman since nowhere have I made that claim, and I do not hold those beliefs. It is a weak tactic because it's founding on falsehood to begin with. Logic is not in you.
If this is the best you can do, you're just really worth arguing with, but I'll try to insinuate some small seed of sense into that impermeable cranium of yours.
This is what is commonly referred to as an ad hominem argument.
First, if someone breaks into my home, that person is immediately a criminal. According to U.S. law, I can resist them, perhaps even kill them, and not be charged with anything at all. You see, you've neglected the whole "he started it" concept. If I instigate a crime, I am the criminal. If someone resists me, that person is the victim and is morally justified in taking actions ag
I find it worrying that people think by default it is acceptable to imprison people, just because there isn't anything saying you can't.
If you say that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, nor do any protections for US Citizens apply, you can't then say that therefore it's okay.
When other US citizens are captured abroad, people don't say "Oh, well he wasn't wearing a uniform, nor does he have any legal protections over there, so I guess that's okay then" do they? No, we refer to them having been taken hostage.
and neither I nor the U.S. Constitution has any problems with that, morally or legally.
So, if someone comes over to your house, breaks in, then you resist - but you're not wearing a uniform, and you don't have your own national flag! - then they capture and throw you in a prison camp in some other country, you'll have no problems with that, morally or legally?
Unlawful combatants are neither criminals nor POWs. They're brigands and may legally be shot or otherwise disposed of arbitrarily. That's perhaps the best part of the Geneva Convention - it gives you a good incentive to wear a unifrom if you're going to fight a war.
The point about the Geneva Convention is to give protection to those soldiers who invade another country; ie, that they should not be treated as spies or terrorists attacking another country, and wearing a uniform is a way to distinguish this.
However, just because someone isn't wearing a uniform, it does not follow that they are therefore a spy, a terrorist attacking another country, "unlawful combatant" (whatever that's supposed to mean) or whatever else, when they are defending their own country from invasion.
"Going to fight a war" is not the same thing at all as "defending your home".
Take a look at the typical LJ and you will see that it matches the sterotype given to it very well. LJ's are not the pinnacle of individual expression. Sorry. I'm sure there are a few "good" ones there, but they do not represent a majority that ShatteredDreams thinks he can count on to "save the net".
There's a lot of boring and rubbish journals; but I'm not convinced that the noise ratio is any worse than the trolls on Slashdot.
Futhermore, if you think that people sit around reading LJs at random, then you are *completely* missing the point. The idea is that you read and comment on the journals of people you know, like and/or find interesting. Who cares if there are a million rubbish journals out there if you don't have to read them?
Blogs in general are not very good sources of high quality information or discussion. I'll stick to my favorite professors, writers, and other authors over the vast majority of the blogs out there.
And what if one of your favourite writers was writing on an LJ?
Replace "blogs" with "websites", and what you say is still true: the vast majority are rubbish. So by your logic, websites in general are no good.
If every douchebag can automatically comment or participate in every site instantly because they no longer have to spend the time or energy filling out a small form and checking their email, the number of inane, useless, spammy, trolling and completely annoying comments and input we're going to have to deal with at a level never before imagined.
Yes, things could even get as bad as here on Slashdot!
(Many places allow anonymous posting which already has this problem. This system is better than that in that it lets you know who is posting, and trolls could be banned anyway - they could only get round that by going through the effort of creating a new account.)
Funny, all of the journals I read, post and comment on involve discussing things which I find interesting in, just that it tends to be with people I know rather than complete strangers.
If you're going to stereotype journals as you do, then it's just as fair to sterotype Slashdot as a place full of trolls, bad cliched jokes, and geeks with no social skills who have never had a girlfriend.
The difference is, with journals you can simply not read the journals you don't like, where as here you've got to put up with all the rubbish, unless it gets modded down.
There are plenty of LiveJournal clone sites out there (since it's open source, and anyone can set up a server), so simply being able to leave comments on all of these without requiring separate logins would be a good thing - even if no one else supports it. If Yahoo did it, it might be more well known, but I don't see it would be more successful in reality - are there clone Yahoo sites out there? Other blogging systems might have incentive to take up OpenID when millions of existing blogs can use it, but I don't see why other companies would take up a system that Yahoo uses.
blogging is still quite the ego-centric niche.
Well, it's ego-centric to assume that someone can be bothered to sign up for an account just to post comments to what you have to say. This is a step forward to making it no more ego-centric than sending an email or posting on Slashdot.
We don't need single sign-on to fill in a few form fields for banking, ecommerce, or blogs. The risks-to-benefit ratio just never works out. Its a few fucking form fields for Christ's sake!
Says the person who couldn't even be bothered to sign up to Slashdot...
The problem is that if one platform has many more people using it, there are also likely to be more people writing software for it. So in this sense, there's a greater need to write better software for Windows, otherwise if there's a better product, everyone will just use that instead (or alternatively, there might be a product which isn't necessarily better, but is already an accepted standard).
I certainly found it a lot easier getting users for software I wrote on the Amiga a few years ago. On Windows, despite the vastly larger userbase, there's always going to be plenty of better and more established software for anything I write, so getting users is hard unless I come up with something particularly brilliant, new or original.
The idea that any idiot can sell over 20,000 copies a year at $29 seems quite ludicrous to me.
I manage to make myself heard in the "cacophony of spam blogs"; maybe that's just because I've got friends who are interested in me. Do you not tell your friends what you've been up to, or do you keep it to yourself?
How is making comments not also demanding attention? Couldn't you have written this on a piece of paper to keep under your pillow, rather than posting here and demanding that everyone see it? Imagine having to make yourself heard in the cacophony of Slashdot posters...
pretty much sums up why blogs are not much better than keyword-stuffed spam.
Except the same could be said of webpages in general - that they are mostly poorly written, and 90% of the population isn't interested in them. Should we filter all webpages out of a Google search?
The whole point of a good search engine is to find the small percentage of stuff you are interested in. In the bad old days of search engines, this was done by things like meta tags where we relied on the web page to tell the search engine how to categorise things. And now we know how things got much better when Google started looking at the content rather than arbitrary categorisations - so I can't believe that people think we should step backwards and do things like "never include anything that calls itself a 'blog', whatever the content is".
Make no mistake: Slashdot is not what people are talking about when they complain of the spam that blogs have dumped into Google..
I disagree - whilst it is annoying if Google results are filled up with irrelevant Blog entries, in my experience it happens far more often that my search results are filled up with irrelevant web forum pages (of which Slashdot is certainly a type).
Of course, sometimes a web forum page Google finds is helpful - and the same can be true of blog entries - so it's not entirely clear how to solve the problem.
The differences you list between Slashdot and "blogs" are irrelevant in terms of how useful they might be as far as search results are concerned.
Quite simply: a novel is not a set of instructions for a clever or innovative idea for a product. A novel is a story. Stallman actually tried using this as an argument?
Sure, a novel isn't an idea, it's the end product, just as the end product of software is a computer game, a word processor or whatever - things which themselves cannot be patented. It's the software algorithms which are patented.
But a novel still has ideas and methods behind it, just as with software. If an author has a "clever or innovative idea for a product", where the "product" is a novel, such as a way of resolving a plot in a certain way, or a new genre, why shouldn't this be patented in the same way that software algorithms can be?
No. Japan surrendering a war THEY STARTED would have ended hostilities.
They did offer to surrender.
With the same conditions (keeping their emperor) that were originally accepted, if the other posts in this thread are to be believed.
Speaking more generally, whilst we might want the starter of the war to surrender, I don't think it follows that they should do so along with whatever conditions the winning side requests - it's all very well wanting revenge, but it's the civilians who end up suffering, and I think wanting revenge creates more problems long term (consider what happened after World War 1).
Right, which is why the war JAPAN STARTED by BOMBING PEARL HARBOR is their fault.
Sure, ultimately everything can also be traced back to those who started the war, but that still doesn't excuse unnecessarily killing innocent civilians - they had no part in starting the war.
Living in the UK and having been subject to such I feel that I do have some ground to stand on here, and I'm still shocked beyond belief that you can walk into a bank with bloody utility bills (which are commonly left in communal hallways and stairs) as proof of identity.
Which banks are those? The banks I'm aware of require utility bills as proof of address, and require proof of ID (eg, a passport) in addition to that.
Anyway, if there really do exist banks who only require utility bills, I don't see why they'd change their act with the introduction of ID cards.
By that logic, the death of British civilians by the Germans was the UK's fault, because we could have unconditionally surrendered (and then, having lost, it would be true that as losers we "don't get to set the terms").
Yes, it is true that deaths could also have been avoided if Japan unconditionally surrendered, and perhaps they were stupid not to, but the blood is on the hands of those who commit the act when peaceful alternatives were available.
What you posted here isn't news for the entire world to hear, but you still decided to post it. Why? Perhaps because you thought it relevant for the people who were likely to read it?
And people were using and writing software for the Amiga many years after Commodore went bust.
Now, I fully agree that a parent company going bust does a large amount of damage to a platform. But it's fair to say that there might still be a reasonable number of people still using it and writing software.
Sure, 11 years after Commodore's death, there's not much left of the Amiga - but then all the other major operating systems of 1994 (classic MacOS, DOS, OS/2) are dead and have been replaced by completely different new ones. The parent company going bust might mean the platform is ultimately doomed - but if the timescale of that happening is comparable to the lifespan of the platform if it didn't go bust, then it doesn't mean quite so much.
You can for once prove you are who you are in the UK
That's an argument for a voluntary standardised ID card, for those without passports.
For the normal law-abiding citizen it will actually be easier to acquire a new driving license or passport should you have lsot the old one.
How? What happens when you lose the ID card?
Given that an ID card with passport costs twice as much as current passports, and all the hassle with biometrics, I would say it would be considerable more hassle to replace if you lose it. Add to that the consequences of losing it in the meantime - being unable to use public services.
Oh, and you would face a fine or prison if you fail to report that an ID card is lost or damaged.
How much do they cost? Is there a central database with things like fingerprints stored?
Finally, it baffles me how people are so nervous about a stupid piece of paper or plastic.
I'm nervous at the consequences of forgetting it, losing it, or having it stolen.
The claim that identity theft would not be affected is simply ludicrous: the very term "identity theft" is exclusive to the anglosaxon world, as identity theft is impossible with an ID-card system; in continental Europe, we don't even talk of it.
Please explain how this ID card would stop someone fraudulently using my credit/debit card details and ordering things online? Even if someone stole my credit card and used it in person, we now have the Chip and PIN system, and I don't see how an ID card system would be better.
Why on earth should an exception be made for religious reasons? It's mature to have a body modification because you believe a supernatural being told you so, but it's immature to do so for other, perhaps more rational, reasons?
Who gets to dictate what is "generally acceptable"? Why is it immature to do different to the majority - is it immature to like non-chart music? I'd have thought the opposite, if anything. Why should whether you stick bits of metal in your ears have anything to do with what sexual organs you have?
It would be one thing to say that your opinion was that visible body piercings were immature - but it really doesn't make sense to go back on yourself and say "except for X and Y arbitrary reasons".
And as for your strawman argument about them trying to be different - I think the last thing most people want is to stand out of the crowd if it draws attention from unfounded and misguided comments such as yours...
Well, it's fine if arithmetic is your strength. Everyone has different strengths. But it's not one of mine. Sure I understand counting, number bases, divisibility, etc. But I'm bad and inaccurate when I do it in my head, and slow when I fight through it on paper.
I didn't need to use a calculator during my maths degree (and in fact they weren't allowed in exams). But this wasn't because arithmetic was one of my strengths, the point is that it wasn't needed.
You are right that many mathematicians don't care about, or aren't any good at mental arithmetic, but it's also true that often they don't need to be, especially when learning the subject. Higher level maths can be taught without having to work out non-trivial sums.
If you really are worrying "less and less about numbers" as you said earlier, what good is a calculator?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, there's an argument for a Government-backed cheap ID card, optional for those people who don't have other forms of ID.
But that's nothing to do with the proposed ID card in the UK.
I mean, why don't you just get a passport if you want ID? The ID card will be about the same price, and more hassle to obtain (what with all the biometric checks). Why would you be happy to carry an ID card all the time, but not a passport?
And with it being compulsory, everyone who already has ID has to pay out again.
If we were just picking up people at random for no reason at all I might -- might -- agree with you. However, we are not. If you're one of the naive souls who thinks those insurgents in Guantanamo are just clean-living, innocent, totally-not-at-fault humans who just happend to fall under the heel of the evil, despotic, brutal, imperialistic U.S. forces, you're beyond reasoning with. You're also delusional, but that's beside the point.
They were found guilty of this in court? No they weren't - it is you who is delusional. The point is, we don't know whether they are terrorists, otherwise bad people, or not.
This statement is what's commonly referred to as a non sequitur, meaning it's something that doesn't logically follow what was said before. You claim that since the Geneva Convention doesn't apply that somehow the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply? That's so absurd I'm not sure how to even reply to it.
This statement is what is commonly referred to as a strawman, since I never claimed that. The word "nor" does not mean "therefore".
What I am saying is this: Even if we say that neither the US protections, nor (that's "nor", not "therefore") the Geneva Convention apply, this doesn't mean that it's okay. You might be able to say that it's not illegal, if there aren't any international agreements against it, but I don't think legality really applies well in this case - that certainly doesn't mean it's morally okay.
Also, you have to accept that it's just as "legal" whenever US citizens are captured and taken hostage by other countries or organisations. Oddly, people never seem to argue this...
You seem to misunderstand the difference between taking a civilian like Daniel Pearl hostage (you know, the journalist who had his living head hacked off his body as a tribute to Allah by those wonderful peaceful Muslims you're so eager to defend) and a recognized member of the U.S. military. I've got news for you: the laws of war do not allow for the indiscriminate targeting of civilians for the purpose of terror (i.e. the London tube bombings, 9/11, etc.)
Okay, so if members of the US Military were taken hostage from their homes in the US, that would be okay?
Also, you've contradicted yourself - first you say that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply because they aren't part of a military, but now you say that they aren't civilians, because they defended their homes. So, if we're talking about US citizens being taken hostage, would you say it would be okay if those US citizens had tried to defend themselves (by doing so, they would no longer be civilians, and since they aren't in uniform, they would be "illegal combatants")?
And please tell me where these people have been found guilty of connections with terrorism.
You have fallen into the liberal mindset of moral equivalence. You think that when Al-Queada detonates a carbomb killing 80 Iraqi civilians, it's no different than when a U.S. military jet drops a bomb and blows away 80 Al-Queada terrorists. Again, if this is your deranged mindset, you're beyond reasoning with. Logic is not in you.
This is what is commonly referred to as a strawman since nowhere have I made that claim, and I do not hold those beliefs. It is a weak tactic because it's founding on falsehood to begin with. Logic is not in you.
If this is the best you can do, you're just really worth arguing with, but I'll try to insinuate some small seed of sense into that impermeable cranium of yours.
This is what is commonly referred to as an ad hominem argument.
First, if someone breaks into my home, that person is immediately a criminal. According to U.S. law, I can resist them, perhaps even kill them, and not be charged with anything at all. You see, you've neglected the whole "he started it" concept. If I instigate a crime, I am the criminal. If someone resists me, that person is the victim and is morally justified in taking actions ag
I find it worrying that people think by default it is acceptable to imprison people, just because there isn't anything saying you can't.
If you say that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, nor do any protections for US Citizens apply, you can't then say that therefore it's okay.
When other US citizens are captured abroad, people don't say "Oh, well he wasn't wearing a uniform, nor does he have any legal protections over there, so I guess that's okay then" do they? No, we refer to them having been taken hostage.
and neither I nor the U.S. Constitution has any problems with that, morally or legally.
So, if someone comes over to your house, breaks in, then you resist - but you're not wearing a uniform, and you don't have your own national flag! - then they capture and throw you in a prison camp in some other country, you'll have no problems with that, morally or legally?
Unlawful combatants are neither criminals nor POWs. They're brigands and may legally be shot or otherwise disposed of arbitrarily. That's perhaps the best part of the Geneva Convention - it gives you a good incentive to wear a unifrom if you're going to fight a war.
The point about the Geneva Convention is to give protection to those soldiers who invade another country; ie, that they should not be treated as spies or terrorists attacking another country, and wearing a uniform is a way to distinguish this.
However, just because someone isn't wearing a uniform, it does not follow that they are therefore a spy, a terrorist attacking another country, "unlawful combatant" (whatever that's supposed to mean) or whatever else, when they are defending their own country from invasion.
"Going to fight a war" is not the same thing at all as "defending your home".
Take a look at the typical LJ and you will see that it matches the sterotype given to it very well. LJ's are not the pinnacle of individual expression. Sorry. I'm sure there are a few "good" ones there, but they do not represent a majority that ShatteredDreams thinks he can count on to "save the net".
There's a lot of boring and rubbish journals; but I'm not convinced that the noise ratio is any worse than the trolls on Slashdot.
Futhermore, if you think that people sit around reading LJs at random, then you are *completely* missing the point. The idea is that you read and comment on the journals of people you know, like and/or find interesting. Who cares if there are a million rubbish journals out there if you don't have to read them?
Blogs in general are not very good sources of high quality information or discussion. I'll stick to my favorite professors, writers, and other authors over the vast majority of the blogs out there.
And what if one of your favourite writers was writing on an LJ?
Replace "blogs" with "websites", and what you say is still true: the vast majority are rubbish. So by your logic, websites in general are no good.
If every douchebag can automatically comment or participate in every site instantly because they no longer have to spend the time or energy filling out a small form and checking their email, the number of inane, useless, spammy, trolling and completely annoying comments and input we're going to have to deal with at a level never before imagined.
Yes, things could even get as bad as here on Slashdot!
(Many places allow anonymous posting which already has this problem. This system is better than that in that it lets you know who is posting, and trolls could be banned anyway - they could only get round that by going through the effort of creating a new account.)
Funny, all of the journals I read, post and comment on involve discussing things which I find interesting in, just that it tends to be with people I know rather than complete strangers.
If you're going to stereotype journals as you do, then it's just as fair to sterotype Slashdot as a place full of trolls, bad cliched jokes, and geeks with no social skills who have never had a girlfriend.
The difference is, with journals you can simply not read the journals you don't like, where as here you've got to put up with all the rubbish, unless it gets modded down.
There are plenty of LiveJournal clone sites out there (since it's open source, and anyone can set up a server), so simply being able to leave comments on all of these without requiring separate logins would be a good thing - even if no one else supports it. If Yahoo did it, it might be more well known, but I don't see it would be more successful in reality - are there clone Yahoo sites out there? Other blogging systems might have incentive to take up OpenID when millions of existing blogs can use it, but I don't see why other companies would take up a system that Yahoo uses.
blogging is still quite the ego-centric niche.
Well, it's ego-centric to assume that someone can be bothered to sign up for an account just to post comments to what you have to say. This is a step forward to making it no more ego-centric than sending an email or posting on Slashdot.
We don't need single sign-on to fill in a few form fields for banking, ecommerce, or blogs. The risks-to-benefit ratio just never works out. Its a few fucking form fields for Christ's sake!
Says the person who couldn't even be bothered to sign up to Slashdot...
This assumes the same number of developers.
The problem is that if one platform has many more people using it, there are also likely to be more people writing software for it. So in this sense, there's a greater need to write better software for Windows, otherwise if there's a better product, everyone will just use that instead (or alternatively, there might be a product which isn't necessarily better, but is already an accepted standard).
I certainly found it a lot easier getting users for software I wrote on the Amiga a few years ago. On Windows, despite the vastly larger userbase, there's always going to be plenty of better and more established software for anything I write, so getting users is hard unless I come up with something particularly brilliant, new or original.
The idea that any idiot can sell over 20,000 copies a year at $29 seems quite ludicrous to me.
Non-religious people are protected too: "Religious hatred is defined in the bill as "hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief" - showing it will also cover atheists."
Though I still disagree with it. It shouldn't be illegal to say that you hate a group of people.
I manage to make myself heard in the "cacophony of spam blogs"; maybe that's just because I've got friends who are interested in me. Do you not tell your friends what you've been up to, or do you keep it to yourself?
How is making comments not also demanding attention? Couldn't you have written this on a piece of paper to keep under your pillow, rather than posting here and demanding that everyone see it? Imagine having to make yourself heard in the cacophony of Slashdot posters...
pretty much sums up why blogs are not much better than keyword-stuffed spam.
Except the same could be said of webpages in general - that they are mostly poorly written, and 90% of the population isn't interested in them. Should we filter all webpages out of a Google search?
The whole point of a good search engine is to find the small percentage of stuff you are interested in. In the bad old days of search engines, this was done by things like meta tags where we relied on the web page to tell the search engine how to categorise things. And now we know how things got much better when Google started looking at the content rather than arbitrary categorisations - so I can't believe that people think we should step backwards and do things like "never include anything that calls itself a 'blog', whatever the content is".
Make no mistake: Slashdot is not what people are talking about when they complain of the spam that blogs have dumped into Google..
I disagree - whilst it is annoying if Google results are filled up with irrelevant Blog entries, in my experience it happens far more often that my search results are filled up with irrelevant web forum pages (of which Slashdot is certainly a type).
Of course, sometimes a web forum page Google finds is helpful - and the same can be true of blog entries - so it's not entirely clear how to solve the problem.
The differences you list between Slashdot and "blogs" are irrelevant in terms of how useful they might be as far as search results are concerned.
Quite simply: a novel is not a set of instructions for a clever or innovative idea for a product. A novel is a story. Stallman actually tried using this as an argument?
Sure, a novel isn't an idea, it's the end product, just as the end product of software is a computer game, a word processor or whatever - things which themselves cannot be patented. It's the software algorithms which are patented.
But a novel still has ideas and methods behind it, just as with software. If an author has a "clever or innovative idea for a product", where the "product" is a novel, such as a way of resolving a plot in a certain way, or a new genre, why shouldn't this be patented in the same way that software algorithms can be?
I thought that was just a theory that wasn't proven but happened to match all observations of reality so far?
The parts that have been successfully verified against observation includes the predictions about time dilation.
No. Japan surrendering a war THEY STARTED would have ended hostilities.
They did offer to surrender.
With the same conditions (keeping their emperor) that were originally accepted, if the other posts in this thread are to be believed.
Speaking more generally, whilst we might want the starter of the war to surrender, I don't think it follows that they should do so along with whatever conditions the winning side requests - it's all very well wanting revenge, but it's the civilians who end up suffering, and I think wanting revenge creates more problems long term (consider what happened after World War 1).
Right, which is why the war JAPAN STARTED by BOMBING PEARL HARBOR is their fault.
Sure, ultimately everything can also be traced back to those who started the war, but that still doesn't excuse unnecessarily killing innocent civilians - they had no part in starting the war.
Living in the UK and having been subject to such I feel that I do have some ground to stand on here, and I'm still shocked beyond belief that you can walk into a bank with bloody utility bills (which are commonly left in communal hallways and stairs) as proof of identity.
Which banks are those? The banks I'm aware of require utility bills as proof of address, and require proof of ID (eg, a passport) in addition to that.
Anyway, if there really do exist banks who only require utility bills, I don't see why they'd change their act with the introduction of ID cards.
By that logic, the death of British civilians by the Germans was the UK's fault, because we could have unconditionally surrendered (and then, having lost, it would be true that as losers we "don't get to set the terms").
Yes, it is true that deaths could also have been avoided if Japan unconditionally surrendered, and perhaps they were stupid not to, but the blood is on the hands of those who commit the act when peaceful alternatives were available.
What you posted here isn't news for the entire world to hear, but you still decided to post it. Why? Perhaps because you thought it relevant for the people who were likely to read it?
And people were using and writing software for the Amiga many years after Commodore went bust.
Now, I fully agree that a parent company going bust does a large amount of damage to a platform. But it's fair to say that there might still be a reasonable number of people still using it and writing software.
Sure, 11 years after Commodore's death, there's not much left of the Amiga - but then all the other major operating systems of 1994 (classic MacOS, DOS, OS/2) are dead and have been replaced by completely different new ones. The parent company going bust might mean the platform is ultimately doomed - but if the timescale of that happening is comparable to the lifespan of the platform if it didn't go bust, then it doesn't mean quite so much.
You can for once prove you are who you are in the UK
That's an argument for a voluntary standardised ID card, for those without passports.
For the normal law-abiding citizen it will actually be easier to acquire a new driving license or passport should you have lsot the old one.
How? What happens when you lose the ID card?
Given that an ID card with passport costs twice as much as current passports, and all the hassle with biometrics, I would say it would be considerable more hassle to replace if you lose it. Add to that the consequences of losing it in the meantime - being unable to use public services.
Oh, and you would face a fine or prison if you fail to report that an ID card is lost or damaged.
They are present in most countries
How much do they cost? Is there a central database with things like fingerprints stored?
Finally, it baffles me how people are so nervous about a stupid piece of paper or plastic.
I'm nervous at the consequences of forgetting it, losing it, or having it stolen.
The claim that identity theft would not be affected is simply ludicrous: the very term "identity theft" is exclusive to the anglosaxon world, as identity theft is impossible with an ID-card system; in continental Europe, we don't even talk of it.
Please explain how this ID card would stop someone fraudulently using my credit/debit card details and ordering things online? Even if someone stole my credit card and used it in person, we now have the Chip and PIN system, and I don't see how an ID card system would be better.
Why on earth should an exception be made for religious reasons? It's mature to have a body modification because you believe a supernatural being told you so, but it's immature to do so for other, perhaps more rational, reasons?
Who gets to dictate what is "generally acceptable"? Why is it immature to do different to the majority - is it immature to like non-chart music? I'd have thought the opposite, if anything. Why should whether you stick bits of metal in your ears have anything to do with what sexual organs you have?
It would be one thing to say that your opinion was that visible body piercings were immature - but it really doesn't make sense to go back on yourself and say "except for X and Y arbitrary reasons".
And as for your strawman argument about them trying to be different - I think the last thing most people want is to stand out of the crowd if it draws attention from unfounded and misguided comments such as yours...
Well, it's fine if arithmetic is your strength. Everyone has different strengths. But it's not one of mine. Sure I understand counting, number bases, divisibility, etc. But I'm bad and inaccurate when I do it in my head, and slow when I fight through it on paper.
I didn't need to use a calculator during my maths degree (and in fact they weren't allowed in exams). But this wasn't because arithmetic was one of my strengths, the point is that it wasn't needed.
You are right that many mathematicians don't care about, or aren't any good at mental arithmetic, but it's also true that often they don't need to be, especially when learning the subject. Higher level maths can be taught without having to work out non-trivial sums.
If you really are worrying "less and less about numbers" as you said earlier, what good is a calculator?