of racism so the most USEFUL anti-terrorist tool available, profiling, is out
Suddenly I keep hearing this garbage repeated by, presumably, limited/anti-government types who hate Muslims, but can't bring themselves to admit one simple fact: there are NO useful anti-terrorist tools available. Profiling for Muslims is just as ineffective as every other measure the TSA has taken so far; it has the same problem of there being several orders of magnitude more Muslims than there are terrorists. The false positive rate will be off the charts, so it'll be the same as what we have now: everything gets through.
tl;dr: profiling is an order of magnitude better than the blanket scans TSA are doing. Unfortunately it is still several orders of magnitude away from being effective.
you argued it by saying I don't have a right to make my point based on who I am and what you imagine my accomplishments are
Really? Which words did I use that say that, exactly?
The whole part where you rambled on about how he should try to start a business, go through the legal paperwork to incorporate, and offer a product that people want.
Ooh, nice -- a customized insult in addition to the canned "completely pathetic" line! The coders who are working on this 'bot must be making some improvements.
By that logic, sex could result in life, which will definitely be foreseen as resulting, ultimately, in a human death. Therefore having sex shows 'depraved indifference to human life'.
Another scenario: a dad who's been laid off and just ran out of unemployment benefits can't afford to buy food for his kids, and goes to steal a loaf of bread for his family. If he gets shot in the process, you'll turn around and say he had depraved indifference to human life.
Do you think Google will let my company advertise in their conferences and meetings, or include my company's logo among the others they show off when they're advertising Android?
No, they won't, but they will let you build an Android app talking about how great your iOS-only app is and put it up for free on the Android store.
I'm sure they'd also happily take your ad money if you wanted to provide it. Oh, you haven't even tried, and have no intention of ever advertising on the Android platform, so you're just making shit up about how bad Google is?
Suppose someone decides not to buy a product from a store. Would the store have had more money if they did? Yes. Using the logic of those who utilize the potential profit argument, this would mean that they have 'stolen' potential profit from the store, and have therefore 'harmed' a legitimate business.
If someone decides to not buy a product from a store, they won't have said product to use. Piracy has all the benefits of choosing not to buy combined with all the benefits of buying.
That said, I wasn't planning on buying or pirating this game, and this story has convinced me that even if I hear very good word of mouth, I still won't be buying or pirating it. In my opinion, media producers really need to get over the fact that some piracy happens, and that they can still make a shitload of money anyway. The entire industry grew up with rampant piracy; obviously it isn't as big of a problem as they like to make it out to be.
No, they're not drowned out by law. They just have no more voice than anyone else. Their individual voices get drowned out by the millions of other voices, rather than the millions of voices being drowned out by their billions of dollars.
$50/day in gas divided by the number of people in the vehicle. If you get 4 or 5 people in there, suddenly it becomes a much less substantial chunk of your pay.
And if you share an apartment with 5 or 10 other people, suddenly rent becomes a much less substantial chunk of your pay.
Not that I'm saying everyone should be jumping at the chance to take these jobs -- it's just far more do-able for someone in a desperate situation than you seem to realize.
Some of us would rather be abused by *neither.* Some of us aren't deluded enough to think that multinational corporations will be affected by the boycotts of the few people who pay enough attention to what's going on to know what they're boycotting about.
person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"
Yeah, I remember hearing about these *all* the time. Such a huge rash of them.
Oh wait, no I don't -- care to clue me in on something besides the McDonald's coffee suit (they deserved to lose and lost) and Nintendo's seizure suit (they deserved to win and lost, and now we have health and safety warnings as part of every start-up screen on a Nintendo system). Or is this just hyperbole ranting about "irresponsible people"?
This may be some of the most strained, twisted logic I've ever.
Exactly how badly do you need your PS3 or 360 to "win" that you have to rationalize the Wii's existence this way?
Also, I'd come back and say that any console that still has wired controllers and no wireless ethernet isn't "next-gen" either. And by your logic, I'd be correct. Or wait -- when you said "hardware" you really meant "only the pieces of hardware I care about."
And you, clearly, are part of that 90% of the population that thinks they're more capable than the other 50% of the population.
Rationalize your recklessness if you want. Ignore the research. It obviously doesn't apply to *you,* because you're special.
In my opinion, the reason there aren't *more* accidents because of cell phone use while driving is because enough drivers *are* paying attention to avoid the idiots.
Thing is, the "innocent" will be punished anyway if the cheaters' grades are allowed to stand. If there's no way to distinguish the cheaters from the non, but the overall test results are known to be suspect, everyone's grade is devalued.
The only way the "innocent" can actually come out ahead at this point is if everyone is forced to re-take a test that they can't cheat on, and they do well on it again.
Either way, non-cheaters are the ones getting screwed; either with more work, or with their work being devalued. One alternative leaves their earned grade suspect, the other just requires repeating a test that they should already be able to do. Pick your poison, I guess, but personally I'd prefer getting the chance to distinguish myself from the cheaters.
You and your sibling poster (stdarg) need to look up false positives to learn why profiling and blanket virtual-strip-searching are BOTH pointless. (Hint: if the false positive rate is nearly 100%, the test is useless.)
people are notoriously hard to convince to save money
People don't save money because actually saving money means losing money. If you put it in any sort of standard "safe" savings account, you lose it to inflation. If you gamble it in investments, it will probably beat inflation until there's a big crash and you lose 60% of it; if you got out before the crash, good, if not, sucks to be you.
His comment was obviously directed at those who just weren't paying their bills.
Oh, so then he was stating the obvious? No shit, people who don't pay their bills, but could pay their bills, should pay their bills. People who can't afford debt shouldn't take on debt. You think this is insightful somehow?
What about all the other circumstances? You know, the gray areas where discussion is actually meaningful? Like where someone makes a mistake and gets taken advantage of? Or where someone has an unfortunate event in their lives and finds themselves unable to pay their bills? You know, the stuff where blanket statements like "people should pay their bills" isn't helpful?
Here -- I'll add some flamebait to counter your troll: fuck you. You think you're brilliant and responsible because you can come up with a pithy comment like "people should pay their bills" and completely ignore the real discussion. Let's see you or someone in your family develop a medical condition that leaves you bankrupt (did you know that 50% of all medical bankruptcies are to people who HAD INSURANCE? I'll bet you didn't.) and then see how you feel about someone just saying, "well you should just pay your bills."
I'm the worst possible customer for credit card companies as they'll never make a penny from me.
Yes, they do. Credit card companies make money from every transaction you make; they take a 3-5% cut right off the top from the merchant. This is essentially free money to them; the only cost is storing a transaction ID related to an account ID.
On top of that, they get their own customers' finance charges and other fees.
Slashdot Mirror
You are aware, of course, that this is just a slippery slope argument?
--Jeremy
Bill, we get it. You're an apologist for incompetence and overreacting.
--Jeremy
Suddenly I keep hearing this garbage repeated by, presumably, limited/anti-government types who hate Muslims, but can't bring themselves to admit one simple fact: there are NO useful anti-terrorist tools available. Profiling for Muslims is just as ineffective as every other measure the TSA has taken so far; it has the same problem of there being several orders of magnitude more Muslims than there are terrorists. The false positive rate will be off the charts, so it'll be the same as what we have now: everything gets through.
tl;dr: profiling is an order of magnitude better than the blanket scans TSA are doing. Unfortunately it is still several orders of magnitude away from being effective.
--Jeremy
Yeah, I remember the Oscar Meyer wiener song, but I still don't buy them. How has that advertising campaign "worked"?
--Jeremy
The whole part where you rambled on about how he should try to start a business, go through the legal paperwork to incorporate, and offer a product that people want.
Should I correct the rest of your post, too?
--Jeremy
Except the current CNN poll shows about 80% in favor of Assange facing criminal charges for what he's doing.
--Jeremy
Ooh, nice -- a customized insult in addition to the canned "completely pathetic" line! The coders who are working on this 'bot must be making some improvements.
Do one for me next!
--Jeremy
By that logic, sex could result in life, which will definitely be foreseen as resulting, ultimately, in a human death. Therefore having sex shows 'depraved indifference to human life'.
Another scenario: a dad who's been laid off and just ran out of unemployment benefits can't afford to buy food for his kids, and goes to steal a loaf of bread for his family. If he gets shot in the process, you'll turn around and say he had depraved indifference to human life.
--Jeremy
You seriously think liberals/progressives/whatever label you use do think that man is perfect, or at least perfectable?
I have no response to that except that you're a fucking idiot.
--Jeremy
Let me translate: "hey, I think I'll ignore this twig stuck in my eye, because that dude over there has an entire LOG stuck in his!"
--Jeremy
No, they won't, but they will let you build an Android app talking about how great your iOS-only app is and put it up for free on the Android store.
I'm sure they'd also happily take your ad money if you wanted to provide it. Oh, you haven't even tried, and have no intention of ever advertising on the Android platform, so you're just making shit up about how bad Google is?
--Jeremy
If someone decides to not buy a product from a store, they won't have said product to use. Piracy has all the benefits of choosing not to buy combined with all the benefits of buying.
That said, I wasn't planning on buying or pirating this game, and this story has convinced me that even if I hear very good word of mouth, I still won't be buying or pirating it. In my opinion, media producers really need to get over the fact that some piracy happens, and that they can still make a shitload of money anyway. The entire industry grew up with rampant piracy; obviously it isn't as big of a problem as they like to make it out to be.
--Jeremy
No, they're not drowned out by law. They just have no more voice than anyone else. Their individual voices get drowned out by the millions of other voices, rather than the millions of voices being drowned out by their billions of dollars.
Is this so difficult to understand?
--Jeremy
$50/day in gas divided by the number of people in the vehicle. If you get 4 or 5 people in there, suddenly it becomes a much less substantial chunk of your pay.
And if you share an apartment with 5 or 10 other people, suddenly rent becomes a much less substantial chunk of your pay.
Not that I'm saying everyone should be jumping at the chance to take these jobs -- it's just far more do-able for someone in a desperate situation than you seem to realize.
--Jeremy
Some of us would rather be abused by *neither.* Some of us aren't deluded enough to think that multinational corporations will be affected by the boycotts of the few people who pay enough attention to what's going on to know what they're boycotting about.
--Jeremy
Yeah, I remember hearing about these *all* the time. Such a huge rash of them.
Oh wait, no I don't -- care to clue me in on something besides the McDonald's coffee suit (they deserved to lose and lost) and Nintendo's seizure suit (they deserved to win and lost, and now we have health and safety warnings as part of every start-up screen on a Nintendo system). Or is this just hyperbole ranting about "irresponsible people"?
--Jeremy
The main difference is, if someone is exonerated while serving their sentence, we can still let them go and say "oops, our bad."
If they're dead, you can't un-kill them. Death is a little more permanent of a punishment.
--Jeremy
Sounds like the PS2 game market to me, too. Have you seen the amount of shovelware in the PS2 library?
--Jeremy
This may be some of the most strained, twisted logic I've ever.
Exactly how badly do you need your PS3 or 360 to "win" that you have to rationalize the Wii's existence this way?
Also, I'd come back and say that any console that still has wired controllers and no wireless ethernet isn't "next-gen" either. And by your logic, I'd be correct. Or wait -- when you said "hardware" you really meant "only the pieces of hardware I care about."
--Jeremy
And you, clearly, are part of that 90% of the population that thinks they're more capable than the other 50% of the population.
Rationalize your recklessness if you want. Ignore the research. It obviously doesn't apply to *you,* because you're special.
In my opinion, the reason there aren't *more* accidents because of cell phone use while driving is because enough drivers *are* paying attention to avoid the idiots.
--Jeremy
Thing is, the "innocent" will be punished anyway if the cheaters' grades are allowed to stand. If there's no way to distinguish the cheaters from the non, but the overall test results are known to be suspect, everyone's grade is devalued.
The only way the "innocent" can actually come out ahead at this point is if everyone is forced to re-take a test that they can't cheat on, and they do well on it again.
Either way, non-cheaters are the ones getting screwed; either with more work, or with their work being devalued. One alternative leaves their earned grade suspect, the other just requires repeating a test that they should already be able to do. Pick your poison, I guess, but personally I'd prefer getting the chance to distinguish myself from the cheaters.
--Jeremy
You and your sibling poster (stdarg) need to look up false positives to learn why profiling and blanket virtual-strip-searching are BOTH pointless. (Hint: if the false positive rate is nearly 100%, the test is useless.)
--Jeremy
People don't save money because actually saving money means losing money. If you put it in any sort of standard "safe" savings account, you lose it to inflation. If you gamble it in investments, it will probably beat inflation until there's a big crash and you lose 60% of it; if you got out before the crash, good, if not, sucks to be you.
--Jeremy
Oh, so then he was stating the obvious? No shit, people who don't pay their bills, but could pay their bills, should pay their bills. People who can't afford debt shouldn't take on debt. You think this is insightful somehow?
What about all the other circumstances? You know, the gray areas where discussion is actually meaningful? Like where someone makes a mistake and gets taken advantage of? Or where someone has an unfortunate event in their lives and finds themselves unable to pay their bills? You know, the stuff where blanket statements like "people should pay their bills" isn't helpful?
Here -- I'll add some flamebait to counter your troll: fuck you. You think you're brilliant and responsible because you can come up with a pithy comment like "people should pay their bills" and completely ignore the real discussion. Let's see you or someone in your family develop a medical condition that leaves you bankrupt (did you know that 50% of all medical bankruptcies are to people who HAD INSURANCE? I'll bet you didn't.) and then see how you feel about someone just saying, "well you should just pay your bills."
--Jeremy
Yes, they do. Credit card companies make money from every transaction you make; they take a 3-5% cut right off the top from the merchant. This is essentially free money to them; the only cost is storing a transaction ID related to an account ID.
On top of that, they get their own customers' finance charges and other fees.
--Jeremy