at least until some clever pirates think about the fact that the code should be unencrypted in memory and you only need two steam account to compare where the 'unique ID' is...
You might not even need that; just a modified hosts file that points to your own PC instead of the Steam server and a program running in memory that replicates an "OK" response anytime it's pinged.
Some of us do and have been saying since before Sept. 11 that the real enemy of democracy is religious extremism... from any religion. Honestly, though, it'll probably take another Tim McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph for people to get it.
Jews, Muslims, and Hindus all have a creation myth where an intelligent being or beings creates the universe.
Are all these myths the same? Because if they're not, the school that teaches one of them has to teach all of them. I'd be fine with that, actually... the more kids learn about other cultures, the better, in my opinion. But are you ready to include Scientology creation myths, or Flying Spaghetti Monster creation myths, et al? Because the moment you exclude any of them, you're going to have a messy First Amendment lawsuit on your hands.
Wiether or not they use the word ID most religions believe in it or at least allow for the possibility.
There's a world of difference between "allowing for the possibility" and what the folks in Texas are doing, though. Allowing for the possibility means you're also allowing for the improbability and separating your faith from your ability to reason. Allowing for the possibility means you also allow for the possibility that someone else's creation myth could be right, or that everyone is equally wrong. What the folks in Texas are trying to do is incorporate Sunday School into the public school curriculum, and that -- by both Constitutional and Biblical standards -- is wrong.
How to challenge a given scientific theory is one thing -- and something that you're right, we should encourage. But, as someone with a degree in journalism, I can tell you that's not what the school board is trying to accomplish.
"We will be teaching nonsense in the science classroom," said David Hillis, a biology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Now, I'm going to take a fair guess that Hillis knows a little bit about the scientific method, too -- certainly more than the politicians who are trying to dictate how it should be taught. If it were you or him talking about changing the curriculum, I might be a little less paranoid, but the fact is that the Radical Reich has been pulling this shit for years.
ID is far to vague to be considered a religion. The theory by itself allows for any god or even a alien to have created the universe.
Find me a Pagan, a Buddhist or an atheist who supports intelligent design, and I might be more inclined to agree. No, ID is creationism with a new name, nothing more -- and as such, it is a strictly Christian creation.
I'm wondering why ID or other philosophical concepts can't be discussed in schools as philosophy?
Depends on whether you're talking about public or private schools. Private schools can do what they want; public schools, on the other hand, have to abide by separation of church and state, meaning that they either (a) can't discuss ID as a philosophy, or (b) have to discuss every creation philosophy they can find, no matter how crazy or offensive it might be to everyone else.
A better answer, I think, is for schools to teach children the basics of critical thinking. If children are allowed to develop their bullshit detectors, they might grow up into adults who wouldn't feel the need to push crap like six-day literal creationism, "Harry Potter is teh evil!!1!one," etc.
Anyone who says, "Evolution's just a theory" should read up on what the word "theory" means within the scientific community:
"A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." (Wikipedia: Scientific Theory)
Natural selection meets these criteria, as does evolution as a whole. Saying "evolution is a theory" is like saying gravity is just a theory. If you want to test gravity (and natural selection, for that matter), jump off a tall building and see if you can fly.
Obviously gun bans don't eliminated crime - but surely you can't claim they don't help at all.
Actually, I would argue that they do more harm than good. Look at per capita murder rates where guns are outlawed or heavily restricted versus rates where gun laws are less draconian. Someone who wants to kill other people is going to get a gun, legally or not; but if there's a chance his would-be victim is armed, he's going to think a little harder about whether actually going after someone is a good idea.
This question is pretty much biased against geeks, or anybody who loves knowledge and education. The police (and companys in general) want people who can take orders without question.
Or people who've been in the military and had the privilege of serving under a lieutenant.
Actually, it's more likely they're going to waste your tax money to spy on Americans for no reason, because it's bad form for the U.S. government to spy on its own, and England is one of the United States' closest allies.
How about a shutter response faster than 500 ms? My dads spotmatic and my old K1000 back in the 80s had a shutter response time somewhere around zero (or at least no longer than typical human or video game player reflexes) but my wife's couple year old nikon takes almost a second to take a picture after the button is pressed, almost useless for action shots.
Sounds like you have a CoolPix? If you want action shots, you've got to invest in higher-end digital SLR cameras. I'm not sure why they don't provide something better in the lower end cameras -- it might have something to do with how CCDs process light in comparison to film, but I truly don't know.
So, Slashdot, how has the military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are needed?
I'm not sure where to begin answering this. Let's look at the recent brouhaha about memory cards and DOD networks to understand why.
In November, the DOD instructed everyone to stop using devices like flash cards, memory sticks, etc. They didn't go into why until weeks later, and they didn't publicly release the "why" until last month, if I recall correctly. And the "why" turned out to be agent.btz, a virus released five months earlier that antivirus software should have stopped.
But beyond that, here are the problems the DOD had in allowing the agent.btz problem to get way out of proportion. First, they had people using memory sticks to transfer files from unclassified networks to classified networks, when the proper procedure is to burn a CD -- which is treated as classified the moment the door closes on the secure system's CD-ROM drive.
Second, they obviously had a massive failure to protect their classified systems against a virus that by that point should have been easily detected and removed... which raises the question, what sort of antivirus software, if any, is installed on the DOD's secure networks?
Finally, let's look at the so-called "solution." Ban all USB storage devices from all government networks? Really? Isn't that a bit like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer? The existing procedures on transferring data to classified systems would have worked fine if it were followed and enforced, but if the DOD can't enforce those procedures, how does it expect to enforce even more draconian measures that seek to ban the use of USB storage devices altogether? No, the DOD's decision smacks of overreaction and panic.
And it's telling that the ban is still in place four months after the fact. What that tells me is that the DOD is not prepared to properly and adequately protect its own networks, much less engage in some lofty concept of "cyber warfare." The DOD is still struggling to define what cyberspace is -- how can they fight in a domain when they don't even know its boundaries?
Speaking as someone who is (a) a technical person, (b) a noncommissioned officer in the Air Force, and (c) a Pagan, I must say that your statement couldn't be more wrong.
Are evangelicals making a mess of things? Well, they certainly try, but the problem is nowhere near as bad in the Air Force as it is in the Army and Navy, at least from what I've gathered during my tenure. And people both inside and outside the military -- from NCOs to MEO officers to agencies like Mikey Weinstein's Military Religiouis Freedom Foundation -- do everything they can to make sure evangelicals inside the military don't violate servicemembers' First Amendment rights.
Your bitchfest is no different from people who whine and moan because Google changed their PageRank algorithm and dropped them from the number-one search result to Page 5. If the success of your business depends on the particular method by which another company does business, you'd better have a backup plan -- because that company doesn't owe you a livelihood.
Bah. I should have said the Constitution doesn't explicitly allow government to invade our privacy. There are also the Third and Fourth amendments, which further protect American citizens (theoretically) from government intrusion.
And yet, looking through your previous postings, it is obvious that you ARE a republican, not a libertarian. Nice move. You are worthy of working with W or Rove.
Of course money doesn't go to the game companies. If they want money, they'll have to go to court and show actual damages -- and since they probably weren't selling M-rated games to minors in the first place, that would be a pretty tall order.
Slashdot Mirror
You might not even need that; just a modified hosts file that points to your own PC instead of the Steam server and a program running in memory that replicates an "OK" response anytime it's pinged.
Some of us do and have been saying since before Sept. 11 that the real enemy of democracy is religious extremism ... from any religion. Honestly, though, it'll probably take another Tim McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph for people to get it.
Are all these myths the same? Because if they're not, the school that teaches one of them has to teach all of them. I'd be fine with that, actually ... the more kids learn about other cultures, the better, in my opinion. But are you ready to include Scientology creation myths, or Flying Spaghetti Monster creation myths, et al? Because the moment you exclude any of them, you're going to have a messy First Amendment lawsuit on your hands.
There's a world of difference between "allowing for the possibility" and what the folks in Texas are doing, though. Allowing for the possibility means you're also allowing for the improbability and separating your faith from your ability to reason. Allowing for the possibility means you also allow for the possibility that someone else's creation myth could be right, or that everyone is equally wrong. What the folks in Texas are trying to do is incorporate Sunday School into the public school curriculum, and that -- by both Constitutional and Biblical standards -- is wrong.
How to challenge a given scientific theory is one thing -- and something that you're right, we should encourage. But, as someone with a degree in journalism, I can tell you that's not what the school board is trying to accomplish.
Now, I'm going to take a fair guess that Hillis knows a little bit about the scientific method, too -- certainly more than the politicians who are trying to dictate how it should be taught. If it were you or him talking about changing the curriculum, I might be a little less paranoid, but the fact is that the Radical Reich has been pulling this shit for years.
Find me a Pagan, a Buddhist or an atheist who supports intelligent design, and I might be more inclined to agree. No, ID is creationism with a new name, nothing more -- and as such, it is a strictly Christian creation.
While we're at it, let's teach math but just leave out the part about long division.
Depends on whether you're talking about public or private schools. Private schools can do what they want; public schools, on the other hand, have to abide by separation of church and state, meaning that they either (a) can't discuss ID as a philosophy, or (b) have to discuss every creation philosophy they can find, no matter how crazy or offensive it might be to everyone else.
A better answer, I think, is for schools to teach children the basics of critical thinking. If children are allowed to develop their bullshit detectors, they might grow up into adults who wouldn't feel the need to push crap like six-day literal creationism, "Harry Potter is teh evil!!1!one," etc.
Anyone who says, "Evolution's just a theory" should read up on what the word "theory" means within the scientific community:
Natural selection meets these criteria, as does evolution as a whole. Saying "evolution is a theory" is like saying gravity is just a theory. If you want to test gravity (and natural selection, for that matter), jump off a tall building and see if you can fly.
Actually, I would argue that they do more harm than good. Look at per capita murder rates where guns are outlawed or heavily restricted versus rates where gun laws are less draconian. Someone who wants to kill other people is going to get a gun, legally or not; but if there's a chance his would-be victim is armed, he's going to think a little harder about whether actually going after someone is a good idea.
Or people who've been in the military and had the privilege of serving under a lieutenant.
There, fixed that for ya.
Actually, it's more likely they're going to waste your tax money to spy on Americans for no reason, because it's bad form for the U.S. government to spy on its own, and England is one of the United States' closest allies.
Sounds like you have a CoolPix? If you want action shots, you've got to invest in higher-end digital SLR cameras. I'm not sure why they don't provide something better in the lower end cameras -- it might have something to do with how CCDs process light in comparison to film, but I truly don't know.
So, Slashdot, how has the military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are needed?
I'm not sure where to begin answering this. Let's look at the recent brouhaha about memory cards and DOD networks to understand why.
In November, the DOD instructed everyone to stop using devices like flash cards, memory sticks, etc. They didn't go into why until weeks later, and they didn't publicly release the "why" until last month, if I recall correctly. And the "why" turned out to be agent.btz, a virus released five months earlier that antivirus software should have stopped.
But beyond that, here are the problems the DOD had in allowing the agent.btz problem to get way out of proportion. First, they had people using memory sticks to transfer files from unclassified networks to classified networks, when the proper procedure is to burn a CD -- which is treated as classified the moment the door closes on the secure system's CD-ROM drive.
Second, they obviously had a massive failure to protect their classified systems against a virus that by that point should have been easily detected and removed ... which raises the question, what sort of antivirus software, if any, is installed on the DOD's secure networks?
Finally, let's look at the so-called "solution." Ban all USB storage devices from all government networks? Really? Isn't that a bit like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer? The existing procedures on transferring data to classified systems would have worked fine if it were followed and enforced, but if the DOD can't enforce those procedures, how does it expect to enforce even more draconian measures that seek to ban the use of USB storage devices altogether? No, the DOD's decision smacks of overreaction and panic.
And it's telling that the ban is still in place four months after the fact. What that tells me is that the DOD is not prepared to properly and adequately protect its own networks, much less engage in some lofty concept of "cyber warfare." The DOD is still struggling to define what cyberspace is -- how can they fight in a domain when they don't even know its boundaries?
Speaking as someone who is (a) a technical person, (b) a noncommissioned officer in the Air Force, and (c) a Pagan, I must say that your statement couldn't be more wrong.
Are evangelicals making a mess of things? Well, they certainly try, but the problem is nowhere near as bad in the Air Force as it is in the Army and Navy, at least from what I've gathered during my tenure. And people both inside and outside the military -- from NCOs to MEO officers to agencies like Mikey Weinstein's Military Religiouis Freedom Foundation -- do everything they can to make sure evangelicals inside the military don't violate servicemembers' First Amendment rights.
Your bitchfest is no different from people who whine and moan because Google changed their PageRank algorithm and dropped them from the number-one search result to Page 5. If the success of your business depends on the particular method by which another company does business, you'd better have a backup plan -- because that company doesn't owe you a livelihood.
We can call it, "The Microsoft Effect."
I can do you one better: Slashdot via carrier pigeon.
You can also get TCP/IP over swallow (African or European) as long as the packet doesn't weigh more than a pound.
Bah. I should have said the Constitution doesn't explicitly allow government to invade our privacy. There are also the Third and Fourth amendments, which further protect American citizens (theoretically) from government intrusion.
Yes, it does. See, the Constitution doesn't allow the government to invade our privacy, ergo, that right is reserved to the people.
This audio file explains AOL better than I could.
Assuming he doesn't already.
I don't care. I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me!
Of course money doesn't go to the game companies. If they want money, they'll have to go to court and show actual damages -- and since they probably weren't selling M-rated games to minors in the first place, that would be a pretty tall order.
Never underestimate the value of an information campaign. Google "Tet Offensive" if you don't believe me.