but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man.
I'm really quite curious as to how this will benefit man? Unless you're mining for He-3, what would we be doing on a moon base? It's not zero-G (or micro-gravity which is the more accruate/preferred term) so any long-term human microgravity experiments are out. Re-fueling inter-planetary spacecraft? Maybe, though I don't know if it's really worth it or not in terms of launch costs since you could probbably equally launch a seperate fuel payload from earth. (Compare that cost to maintaing an entire moon base). We originally went to the moon as a political show of power over the Soviet Union, and because the space program was a good way to get everyone onboard funding balistic missile technology. Now that the cold war is over, what's the impetus?
My point is there has to be a tangible goal for having a moon base that isn't more easily achieved by other means. The cool sci-fi factor just isn't enough.
If you could find out with high certainty that you would or would not get a particular disease, you would only buy insurance for those risks which apply to you
Extremely doubtfull that any majority of people would take this approach. You assume people buy insurance only as a purely rational, non-emotional financial decision, and not for something more intangible like "peace of mind". I think the majority of people will still get the same insurance even if they know they're at low risk for heart disease, MS, etc. You can still obviously get in a car accident, slip in the shower, or get a disease you're at "low risk for" no matter what you do. I've seen time and time again that the majority of the population is just terrible at assessing low risk. In short a lot of health insurance is driven by fear, not risk. Fear is a lot harder to drive away than just a few tests.
Testing will only let the people who are at high risk for rare disease make sure they're covered for said diseases. How many of those people aren't covered now, but would be after they've tested as high risk for some horrible disease? That's the real question here. Insurance companies might try to require testing, but I suspect this requirement would become illegal rather quickly (if it isn't already). People are gullible for a lot of things, but there's A LOT of very paranoid people out there that don't trust health insurance companies one lick (and with good reason). There's a large amount of what a friend of mine refered to as "down home cynicism" when it comes to Insurance and health-care. With an aging boomer population this point only becomes more important.
So get your software from a company like RedHat or SuSE if you're worried about being sued. In the case of stolen IP they should be held liable since they distributed the software. How is this any different from a close-source company?
How is that scary? He had the credit card that was just used a few hours ago. He didn't just flash a credit card and tell them what the numbers were. Furthermore this was a frickin Dennys, not a sex shop. What's so private about the description of someone at a Dennys?
Are you really concerned that people might forge your credit card, then go around to restaraunts asking for descriptions of you? Your appearance isn't exactly private information, unless you wear a paper sack around your head. If you're really that paranoid just shouldn't even go outside.
No one EVER works alone and does a task entirely by themselves. Are you going to give credit to Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone he used to call the police too? The distinguishing factor here is that he is the only person who would have even possibily caught this guy. The credit card company would have just written it off as a loss. The police would have written it up as a statistic. Ovid is by far the person most responsible for catching them.
It's great the the CC company has fraud detection, but that's really not intended to catch anyone, merely to reduce losses.
True, but IP/patent problems are a concern with ALL software, not just open source. If you don't think IP theft happens in corporate software, think again. There's been several very public lawsuits where code theft from one company to another happened. Patents are just ammunition to attack or defend yourself against other companies. All the Open Source community needs is its own patent ammunition to protect itself.
Even MS had some issues with developers using non-licensed tools to create.. sound files I think it was. We only find out the issues that go public. How many IP/patent issues do we never hear about because of the closed nature of closed-source software and private companies?
Pure ADTI bias aside, I think this is the most dishonest thing about this article. Open Source will likely have to solve the problems differently than private companies, but the issues aren't a whole lot different.
I'm torn between "you're probbably right" and "his bosses are just fools who think it'll be a trivial task".
The upside sounds like the app doesn't have to support both languages at the same time. That's a MAJOR saving grace. That means he can just rip out the japanese menu descriptions, and put in english equivs. No infra-structure for swapping between english/japanese is needed. There's disadvantages to this too of course. A code fork means two seperate, but incompartible versions of the app are going to be developed. Sharing code between them is going to be non-trivial because of the language barrier.
The easy part is going to be translating the interface. Menu item labels, etc shouldn't be that hard if you have someone to help you translate them. You might have to have a translator sitting at your side as you translate the interface. The hard part is going to be any maintenance done to this program. Since all the variable names, comments, etc are all going to be in Japanese this app is going to be a nightmare to maintain.
My fingerprints and picture can't be used to determine if I have a greater chance of getting heart disease, cancer, etc. Could my DNA be used to deny me healthcare, insurance, etc?
No, video cassettes were never "good enough". The quality always sucked, the access was linear, the quality only got worse as the tape wore out, etc. SVHS was a bit better, but not better enough for anyone but video enthusiasts to adopt it. Video cassettes were as "good enough" as audio cassettes were. That is, not at all.
CDs quickly became the dominant medium over audio cassettes for the very same reasons DVD overtook VHS. Cassette tapes were relegated to portable environments like cars, walkmans, etc.
The problem with BluRay taking off as a medium is that DVD is already "good enough" for the vast majority of people. The quality of a DVD already surprasses what a normal SD-TV can produce. Until the prices of HD-TVs start going down to be similar to the price of a normal TV, most people are still going to have regular SD-TVs.
So don't plan on BluRay replacing DVD anytime soon. Consumers have a long history of resisting format changes until the benefits outweigh the costs. To complicate matters even further there's still a battle over which standard, BluRay or HD-DVD will win the battle. Unless one or the other deals a knockout punch early on, they'll both end up losing to the old format of DVD. As I've already said DVD is "good enough", and there's a large segment of the market that doesn't want to get burned with useless equipment (i.e. Beta, and 8-track).
Wow. With a policy like that I can see why there's a sucks.com site for it. Not a bad thing to check out if there's a sucks site for a prospective employer before starting employment.
Slashdot is full of reactionary moderators. Anything with the slightest hint of sarcasm or edge to is has the potential to be labled "troll". Personally I think almost all the tags but funny and insightfull/interesting and informative should be eliminated. To many times marking something as troll or offtopic is just a self-fullfilling prophecy (someone calls it a troll, and suddenly it is).
Offtopic is the worst tag, as people of narrow mind just lable anything outside of tiny boundries to be "offtopic". Really these tags were meant to eliminate the idiotic people posting garbage about "Stephen King is dead".
to moderators: anyone modding this post offtopic, troll, or Flamebait "just to be funny" will be dealt with severly by the computer gods.
This isn't a court of law, I don't have to pass reasonable doubt.
What you have is speculation based on the tiniest of information. Reasonable doubt would be near certainty by comparison. Next time try to base your arguments against someone on a bit more fact, and a LOT less imagination.
Umm.. why are you comparing the military budget to GDP? Strangely enough most people think the military budget is huge because it's a large percentage of federal spending. GDP has nothing to do with that, other than being a number that the military spending is small in comparison with. I find your entire argument to be patently dishonest.
No. A personal attack would be me calling you an asshole, loser, rapist, or crook. Attacking what someone actually said is an attack on their ideas, a wholly different animal.
No, you're making stuff up based on re-interpretation of his actual words. Let me demonstrate: what you think he said: He said people who code worse than him but with social skills get jobs
what he actually said: Seriously, I have seen too many HR folks hire people who can't code for shit.
What you think he said: He also said he's been on a lot of interviews, which means a lot of rejections unless he's currently working 8 jobs.
What he actually said: Personally I have been on enough interviews to know that you can put anything down on your resume.
Huh. Sounds like you're implying a HELL of a lot based on almost nothing. This bothers me greatly, this distortion of facts.
You said: He states clearly that he believes that jobs should be based on "ability", not people skills, "
Actually he never said that directly at all. What he said was:
have seen too many HR folks hire people who can't code for shit.
The implications aren't clear, but to me that sounds like he's upset because people skills are put first, and actual ability to code are an after thought. Obviously that's still guesswork, because he never actually made any clear statement about the balance of these skills. I guess I think programming is about actual programming and that should be paramount. People skills are great, but if you can't code, you should be shown the door. I've worked with such a very nice coder before. Everyone liked him. Everyone also knew he was a terrible programmer (and always prefaced the inevidible comments about his poor performance with "I really like him.. but"). He was fired after his contract came up like he should have been. and also seems to belittle "good corporate citizens.
Well, I don't really know exactly what you or he mean by "good corporate citizens", but to me that just sounds like brainwashed toadies who sing IBM corporate songs and have no soul. But belittling? I didn't hear much of that. I certainly have belittled these people, but the original poster really hasn't. For the record, here's what he said: They are hired strictly as good team players with good communication skills, who are good corporate citizens.
And you go on... That attitude generally comes from an unwillingness to work as part of a team, or a lack of understanding regarding how important teamwork is to problem solving at the corporate level. I really don't think that's going too far out on a limb.
Wow, you're so far out on the limb you can't even see the tree anymore. I can't even quote anything the original poster said, because you're just implying all of this from those 5 lines you embellished so greatly. Is this part of a full psychiatric evaluation?
No, it just pisses me off greatly when people think they know something but they obviously don't. You don't know anything about this guy except a few lines posted on Slashdot, and yet you're willing to fill in all the lines with guesswork details about him.
Maybe you should drop the "I know exactly who you are based on one five line post on slashdot" attitude.
The guy was talking about people that CAN'T code, but come off as "nice" and that's why they're hired. I find your implications that the GP poster has a lack of social skills to be incredibly presumptuous. You're reading an entire mountain of information into the post that simply isn't their. Attacking someone based on what they didn't say is the height of dishonesty.
There's a big difference between regulating content, and regulating who can broadcast on what frequencies. If what you say were true satelite radio and TV providers would be subject to the same content regulations that broadcast TV and radio stations are.
There has to be a threshold finding of interstate commerce though, before Congress can even consider infringing on your first amendment rights.
True, but we already have federal laws of questionable nature like those regulating illegal drugs. Without the first amendment regulating cable TV would be easy by comparision.
Just because someone pays for cable TV, that is not a request to have all kinds of trash piped into their homes.
Absolutely right. I can't stand Fox News either. The problem is that there are so many instances now where you are watching one of those "trusted" stations that don't generally show things that children shouldn't see and suddenly, something indecent appears.
I know how you feel. Every now and again I see that nut Jerry Falwell on the 700 club spreading his biggoted crap. However, people who want to watch TV and be assured that the content is family appropriate should have that right as well.
Thankfully our founding fathers never gave us this right. In fact they gave us exactly the opposite of this right. All of you who are mocking the fact that this is being done "for the children", just think about what the world is going to be like 30 years from now when everyone has grown up being indoctrinated with sex, violence, and filthy language. It will be like one big whorehouse.
And I think the same thing about all that religious right wing crap I see. Strangely enough we're also given a brain to decide what's right and wrong. As far as the "30 years from now" idea, sex, violence and filthy language wasn't invented yesterday, and no ones forcing you to subscribe to cable. As another poster pointed out, use your v-chip if you don't want your kids to see stuff you don't like. You're even one up on me, since there's no "biggoted right wing crap" rating I can censor out of my TV.
Even if this bill (which is essentially posturing to the senators supporters and has no legs) by some evil miracle got signed into law it's quite clearly in violation of the first amendment. That's part of the genius that our founding fathers to guarantee certain rights that are exceedingly difficult to take away. It's not perfect, as we've seen with all this patriot act crap, but even that I think will eventually go away.
What surprises me most is I always thought of Alaska as a state that doesn't want government control on things. I'd expect this kind of garbage legislation from say Mississippi or South Carolina, but Alaska?
It makes sense that the federal government regulates airwaves as a "channel of commerce."
Actually from what I recall free speech issues on regulation of broadcast media are gotten around because the information is sent into everyones homes without any kind of subscription. It has nothing to do with being a channel of commerce. It's like regulating nudity on billboards, etc.
Cable television on the other hand is a subscription model, and broadcast into nobodys home that doesn't want it. Cable (and really satelite TV and satelite radio) are really like newpapers and magazines, and are granted the same first amendment protections.
Does it bother anyone else that federal officers will attempt to pass a law just because they "feel" they have the power, and "feel" something is needed? If there must be standards, why not let the bloody states set them and stop trying to distend the limits of federal authority beyond all recognizable bounds?
No, it bothers me when people try to regulate things that are clearly protected by first amendment rights. It would equally bother me if individual states tried the same thing.
Why this story got posted..
on
Ask mc chris
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Obviously this guy is a bit obscure even to most of the slashdot crowd. So you may ask yourself.. why did this story get posted? There's one very telling clue:
The wife is very unhappy with me for not getting tickets in time
So CmdrTaco says to himself.. "how can I still get tickets, even though they're all sold out? I know! I'll contact Chris and ask him for free tickets in exchange for an 'interview' on Ask Slashdot!" Nevermind the vast majority of slashdot people have either never heard of him, or don't care two whits about him.
I couldn't agree more. To expand on this thought, a programmer can't anticipate all the optimizations and tricks that happen at the processor level, therefore the minute little optimizations that a programmer thinks might make the code faster might actually wind up making it slower! Processors and processor optimizations also change with time, so you should rely on your compiler for those sorts of optimizations.
Call it artistic license - blogs are people's expression... you cannot use antiquated standards on a new medium or art form.
I'm calling bullshit here. I'm not a buyer into this whole "don't judge my art.. you just don't understand it!" crap. I'll judge whatever and whomever by whatever standards I see fit. Calling standards antiquated (and really I don't even know what standards you're referring to) is just akin to saying the emperrror has no clothes. If I don't like something, all someone has to say is that means I'm using antiquated standards to judge them on this "new medium" (how new is people writing stuff down and sharing it with others?). Stating that something art or expression is not a refuge against judgement. People's art or expression can suck rocks just like anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man.
I'm really quite curious as to how this will benefit man? Unless you're mining for He-3, what would we be doing on a moon base? It's not zero-G (or micro-gravity which is the more accruate/preferred term) so any long-term human microgravity experiments are out. Re-fueling inter-planetary spacecraft? Maybe, though I don't know if it's really worth it or not in terms of launch costs since you could probbably equally launch a seperate fuel payload from earth. (Compare that cost to maintaing an entire moon base). We originally went to the moon as a political show of power over the Soviet Union, and because the space program was a good way to get everyone onboard funding balistic missile technology. Now that the cold war is over, what's the impetus?
My point is there has to be a tangible goal for having a moon base that isn't more easily achieved by other means. The cool sci-fi factor just isn't enough.
If you could find out with high certainty that you would or would not get a particular disease, you would only buy insurance for those risks which apply to you
Extremely doubtfull that any majority of people would take this approach. You assume people buy insurance only as a purely rational, non-emotional financial decision, and not for something more intangible like "peace of mind". I think the majority of people will still get the same insurance even if they know they're at low risk for heart disease, MS, etc. You can still obviously get in a car accident, slip in the shower, or get a disease you're at "low risk for" no matter what you do. I've seen time and time again that the majority of the population is just terrible at assessing low risk. In short a lot of health insurance is driven by fear, not risk. Fear is a lot harder to drive away than just a few tests.
Testing will only let the people who are at high risk for rare disease make sure they're covered for said diseases. How many of those people aren't covered now, but would be after they've tested as high risk for some horrible disease? That's the real question here. Insurance companies might try to require testing, but I suspect this requirement would become illegal rather quickly (if it isn't already). People are gullible for a lot of things, but there's A LOT of very paranoid people out there that don't trust health insurance companies one lick (and with good reason). There's a large amount of what a friend of mine refered to as "down home cynicism" when it comes to Insurance and health-care. With an aging boomer population this point only becomes more important.
So get your software from a company like RedHat or SuSE if you're worried about being sued. In the case of stolen IP they should be held liable since they distributed the software. How is this any different from a close-source company?
How is that scary? He had the credit card that was just used a few hours ago. He didn't just flash a credit card and tell them what the numbers were. Furthermore this was a frickin Dennys, not a sex shop. What's so private about the description of someone at a Dennys?
Are you really concerned that people might forge your credit card, then go around to restaraunts asking for descriptions of you? Your appearance isn't exactly private information, unless you wear a paper sack around your head. If you're really that paranoid just shouldn't even go outside.
No one EVER works alone and does a task entirely by themselves. Are you going to give credit to Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone he used to call the police too? The distinguishing factor here is that he is the only person who would have even possibily caught this guy. The credit card company would have just written it off as a loss. The police would have written it up as a statistic. Ovid is by far the person most responsible for catching them.
It's great the the CC company has fraud detection, but that's really not intended to catch anyone, merely to reduce losses.
True, but IP/patent problems are a concern with ALL software, not just open source. If you don't think IP theft happens in corporate software, think again. There's been several very public lawsuits where code theft from one company to another happened. Patents are just ammunition to attack or defend yourself against other companies. All the Open Source community needs is its own patent ammunition to protect itself.
Even MS had some issues with developers using non-licensed tools to create.. sound files I think it was. We only find out the issues that go public. How many IP/patent issues do we never hear about because of the closed nature of closed-source software and private companies?
Pure ADTI bias aside, I think this is the most dishonest thing about this article. Open Source will likely have to solve the problems differently than private companies, but the issues aren't a whole lot different.
I'm torn between "you're probbably right" and "his bosses are just fools who think it'll be a trivial task".
The upside sounds like the app doesn't have to support both languages at the same time. That's a MAJOR saving grace. That means he can just rip out the japanese menu descriptions, and put in english equivs. No infra-structure for swapping between english/japanese is needed. There's disadvantages to this too of course. A code fork means two seperate, but incompartible versions of the app are going to be developed. Sharing code between them is going to be non-trivial because of the language barrier.
The easy part is going to be translating the interface. Menu item labels, etc shouldn't be that hard if you have someone to help you translate them. You might have to have a translator sitting at your side as you translate the interface. The hard part is going to be any maintenance done to this program. Since all the variable names, comments, etc are all going to be in Japanese this app is going to be a nightmare to maintain.
My fingerprints and picture can't be used to determine if I have a greater chance of getting heart disease, cancer, etc. Could my DNA be used to deny me healthcare, insurance, etc?
No, video cassettes were never "good enough". The quality always sucked, the access was linear, the quality only got worse as the tape wore out, etc. SVHS was a bit better, but not better enough for anyone but video enthusiasts to adopt it. Video cassettes were as "good enough" as audio cassettes were. That is, not at all.
CDs quickly became the dominant medium over audio cassettes for the very same reasons DVD overtook VHS. Cassette tapes were relegated to portable environments like cars, walkmans, etc.
The problem with BluRay taking off as a medium is that DVD is already "good enough" for the vast majority of people. The quality of a DVD already surprasses what a normal SD-TV can produce. Until the prices of HD-TVs start going down to be similar to the price of a normal TV, most people are still going to have regular SD-TVs.
So don't plan on BluRay replacing DVD anytime soon. Consumers have a long history of resisting format changes until the benefits outweigh the costs. To complicate matters even further there's still a battle over which standard, BluRay or HD-DVD will win the battle. Unless one or the other deals a knockout punch early on, they'll both end up losing to the old format of DVD. As I've already said DVD is "good enough", and there's a large segment of the market that doesn't want to get burned with useless equipment (i.e. Beta, and 8-track).
Wow. With a policy like that I can see why there's a sucks.com site for it. Not a bad thing to check out if there's a sucks site for a prospective employer before starting employment.
Wow, how did this get modded as a troll?
Slashdot is full of reactionary moderators. Anything with the slightest hint of sarcasm or edge to is has the potential to be labled "troll". Personally I think almost all the tags but funny and insightfull/interesting and informative should be eliminated. To many times marking something as troll or offtopic is just a self-fullfilling prophecy (someone calls it a troll, and suddenly it is).
Offtopic is the worst tag, as people of narrow mind just lable anything outside of tiny boundries to be "offtopic". Really these tags were meant to eliminate the idiotic people posting garbage about "Stephen King is dead".
to moderators: anyone modding this post offtopic, troll, or Flamebait "just to be funny" will be dealt with severly by the computer gods.
This isn't a court of law, I don't have to pass reasonable doubt.
What you have is speculation based on the tiniest of information. Reasonable doubt would be near certainty by comparison. Next time try to base your arguments against someone on a bit more fact, and a LOT less imagination.
Umm.. why are you comparing the military budget to GDP? Strangely enough most people think the military budget is huge because it's a large percentage of federal spending. GDP has nothing to do with that, other than being a number that the military spending is small in comparison with. I find your entire argument to be patently dishonest.
No. A personal attack would be me calling you an asshole, loser, rapist, or crook. Attacking what someone actually said is an attack on their ideas, a wholly different animal.
I'm going off what he said.
No, you're making stuff up based on re-interpretation of his actual words. Let me demonstrate:
what you think he said:
He said people who code worse than him but with social skills get jobs
what he actually said:
Seriously, I have seen too many HR folks hire people who can't code for shit.
What you think he said:
He also said he's been on a lot of interviews, which means a lot of rejections unless he's currently working 8 jobs.
What he actually said:
Personally I have been on enough interviews to know that you can put anything down on your resume.
Huh. Sounds like you're implying a HELL of a lot based on almost nothing. This bothers me greatly, this distortion of facts.
You said:
He states clearly that he believes that jobs should be based on "ability", not people skills, "
Actually he never said that directly at all. What he said was:
have seen too many HR folks hire people who can't code for shit.
The implications aren't clear, but to me that sounds like he's upset because people skills are put first, and actual ability to code are an after thought. Obviously that's still guesswork, because he never actually made any clear statement about the balance of these skills. I guess I think programming is about actual programming and that should be paramount. People skills are great, but if you can't code, you should be shown the door. I've worked with such a very nice coder before. Everyone liked him. Everyone also knew he was a terrible programmer (and always prefaced the inevidible comments about his poor performance with "I really like him.. but"). He was fired after his contract came up like he should have been.
and also seems to belittle "good corporate citizens.
Well, I don't really know exactly what you or he mean by "good corporate citizens", but to me that just sounds like brainwashed toadies who sing IBM corporate songs and have no soul. But belittling? I didn't hear much of that. I certainly have belittled these people, but the original poster really hasn't. For the record, here's what he said:
They are hired strictly as good team players with good communication skills, who are good corporate citizens.
And you go on...
That attitude generally comes from an unwillingness to work as part of a team, or a lack of understanding regarding how important teamwork is to problem solving at the corporate level. I really don't think that's going too far out on a limb.
Wow, you're so far out on the limb you can't even see the tree anymore. I can't even quote anything the original poster said, because you're just implying all of this from those 5 lines you embellished so greatly.
Is this part of a full psychiatric evaluation?
No, it just pisses me off greatly when people think they know something but they obviously don't. You don't know anything about this guy except a few lines posted on Slashdot, and yet you're willing to fill in all the lines with guesswork details about him.
Maybe you should drop the "I know exactly who you are based on one five line post on slashdot" attitude.
The guy was talking about people that CAN'T code, but come off as "nice" and that's why they're hired. I find your implications that the GP poster has a lack of social skills to be incredibly presumptuous. You're reading an entire mountain of information into the post that simply isn't their. Attacking someone based on what they didn't say is the height of dishonesty.
There's a big difference between regulating content, and regulating who can broadcast on what frequencies. If what you say were true satelite radio and TV providers would be subject to the same content regulations that broadcast TV and radio stations are.
There has to be a threshold finding of interstate commerce though, before Congress can even consider infringing on your first amendment rights.
True, but we already have federal laws of questionable nature like those regulating illegal drugs. Without the first amendment regulating cable TV would be easy by comparision.
Just because someone pays for cable TV, that is not a request to have all kinds of trash piped into their homes.
Absolutely right. I can't stand Fox News either.
The problem is that there are so many instances now where you are watching one of those "trusted" stations that don't generally show things that children shouldn't see and suddenly, something indecent appears.
I know how you feel. Every now and again I see that nut Jerry Falwell on the 700 club spreading his biggoted crap.
However, people who want to watch TV and be assured that the content is family appropriate should have that right as well.
Thankfully our founding fathers never gave us this right. In fact they gave us exactly the opposite of this right.
All of you who are mocking the fact that this is being done "for the children", just think about what the world is going to be like 30 years from now when everyone has grown up being indoctrinated with sex, violence, and filthy language. It will be like one big whorehouse.
And I think the same thing about all that religious right wing crap I see. Strangely enough we're also given a brain to decide what's right and wrong. As far as the "30 years from now" idea, sex, violence and filthy language wasn't invented yesterday, and no ones forcing you to subscribe to cable. As another poster pointed out, use your v-chip if you don't want your kids to see stuff you don't like. You're even one up on me, since there's no "biggoted right wing crap" rating I can censor out of my TV.
Even if this bill (which is essentially posturing to the senators supporters and has no legs) by some evil miracle got signed into law it's quite clearly in violation of the first amendment. That's part of the genius that our founding fathers to guarantee certain rights that are exceedingly difficult to take away. It's not perfect, as we've seen with all this patriot act crap, but even that I think will eventually go away.
What surprises me most is I always thought of Alaska as a state that doesn't want government control on things. I'd expect this kind of garbage legislation from say Mississippi or South Carolina, but Alaska?
It makes sense that the federal government regulates airwaves as a "channel of commerce."
Actually from what I recall free speech issues on regulation of broadcast media are gotten around because the information is sent into everyones homes without any kind of subscription. It has nothing to do with being a channel of commerce. It's like regulating nudity on billboards, etc.
Cable television on the other hand is a subscription model, and broadcast into nobodys home that doesn't want it. Cable (and really satelite TV and satelite radio) are really like newpapers and magazines, and are granted the same first amendment protections.
Does it bother anyone else that federal officers will attempt to pass a law just because they "feel" they have the power, and "feel" something is needed? If there must be standards, why not let the bloody states set them and stop trying to distend the limits of federal authority beyond all recognizable bounds?
No, it bothers me when people try to regulate things that are clearly protected by first amendment rights. It would equally bother me if individual states tried the same thing.
Obviously this guy is a bit obscure even to most of the slashdot crowd. So you may ask yourself.. why did this story get posted? There's one very telling clue:
The wife is very unhappy with me for not getting tickets in time
So CmdrTaco says to himself.. "how can I still get tickets, even though they're all sold out? I know! I'll contact Chris and ask him for free tickets in exchange for an 'interview' on Ask Slashdot!" Nevermind the vast majority of slashdot people have either never heard of him, or don't care two whits about him.
There's this thing called journalistic integrity and conflict of interest Taco.. maybe you should read those linked wikipedia articles.
I couldn't agree more. To expand on this thought, a programmer can't anticipate all the optimizations and tricks that happen at the processor level, therefore the minute little optimizations that a programmer thinks might make the code faster might actually wind up making it slower! Processors and processor optimizations also change with time, so you should rely on your compiler for those sorts of optimizations.
Call it artistic license - blogs are people's expression... you cannot use antiquated standards on a new medium or art form.
I'm calling bullshit here. I'm not a buyer into this whole "don't judge my art.. you just don't understand it!" crap. I'll judge whatever and whomever by whatever standards I see fit. Calling standards antiquated (and really I don't even know what standards you're referring to) is just akin to saying the emperrror has no clothes. If I don't like something, all someone has to say is that means I'm using antiquated standards to judge them on this "new medium" (how new is people writing stuff down and sharing it with others?). Stating that something art or expression is not a refuge against judgement. People's art or expression can suck rocks just like anything else.