There are obvious empirical counterarguments viz. prisons, military bases and ships
Prisons can be so secure that they hamper the ability of a prisoner to be rehabilitated...or worse, make the prisoner more unstable and at-risk for criminal behavior. Look at what's neatly called administrative segregation. It used to be known as solitary confinement, but now all types of people are put in ad-seg...people who are targets of gangs (who have done nothing wrong) for example. Some countries consider solitary confinement torture.
The point is, even for a PRISON, you cannot say that security is always non-zero-sum. The converse is true, ALL security/civil rights issues are a zero sum game. The sooner we as a people realize that NO environment can be make truly secure, the sooner we can actually trying to start solving some of our worst problems.
The summary was wrong, should read "AI programmed to play Pacman"
I agree that AI is overhyped. Now we can debate the definition of "AI" for days but the fact is, this is simple programming. You tell the computer how to do something, and it does it (heh, i know it's not that simple, but the idea is that simple).
AI is a fun topic. But ultimately the question of really defining Artificial intelligence is connected to how we define Human thought. In an abstract sense, humans are just programmable meat bags, controlled by what we sense from the environment and by 'hardwired' innate reactions.
The bottom line is, computers will never do anything we don't tell them to do (implicitly or explicitly), and thus, AI will always be limited by human intelligence.
ps...i know how funny part of that last line sounds 'computers will never do anything we don't tell them to' when taken in the context of a Blue Screen of Death or some such failure, but remember, a human (loose term) was responsible for the faulty program with the errors that cause the BSD, so my analogy still holds up
so you agree people have the right to choose what they eat, thanks
form a consumer organization that inspects and certifies meat growers
so really, you just have a different opinion as to HOW labelling should occur, but you agree it should be labeled...that was my whole point to begin with...thanks for the support:)
i disagree, heh...i don't think you and I actually disagree on my main point: we have the right to know what we eat
you're right, plants have been cloned for a long time. mammals are a different issue, that's why it took us 'till Dolly the sheep to clone a mammal...it's more complex by orders of magnitude. that supports my point.
also, you're right, in the technical sense 'genetically modified' and 'cloned' are different. but, genetically modified wheat and cloned mammals are similar in that they are new (in the longview) technologies that may have very unfourtunate effects that we could not see until years later. which speaks to the point you made about 'we've been living in a narrowing genetic diversity of food product for the past few millenia.' now, c'mon man, i read 'guns germs and steele' too, and genetically modifying crops and cloning mammals for consumptions is different than some tribe in the south pacific domesticating a type of legume. we know that plant domestication has had consequences on our genome (blood types for starters), and an alteration of food on this scale at this level of complexity just offers a significant number of unknowns.
look, i love science, technology, progress, and exploration. i'm not going to scream about mammal cloning. the FDA approved it.
all I want is to have the power to look into what is happening for myself, and make an informed decision about whether I want to eat cloned mammal meat...
Genetically modified food, particularly meat from cloned animals, should be labeled if the FDA must approve it for sale.
This is a consumer rights issue.
All up and down this post, geneticists and biology teachers have been going on and on about telomeres and banana clones and blah blah blah...the fact is, meat from a cloned animal is NOT the same as meat from an animal born as a twin. The long term consequences of narrowing genetic diversity in biological food product (what cows have become) could have very nasty consequences.
The FDA did their studies and approved cloned meat. Fine by me, but we have the right to know WHAT we are eating...especially in regards to this issue.
I am a member of the British Interplanetary Society and the Planetary Society. Who launched Cosmos-1? Planetary Society did! Who studied nuclear pulse propulsion? British Interplanetary Society did!
cool...i think that's awesome...i'd join up (don't have any $, i'm a writer...all i have are opinions;)
you backed off your original point, though.
Governments should cut taxes and privatise space agencies
non-profit is different than private industry, and your original post was basically the tired old anarcho-capitalist argument that private industry is better than public sector. Now you bring up this 'non-profit' red herring. Your argument is inconsistent, and wrong. The public sector is the only place that's truly pushed the frontier of space, and it is best done that way, for all of the reasons given in TFA.
You don't expect me to write essays on Slashdot, do you? Raising an opinion you don't like is not trolling.
No, i do not. I would expect you to either skim the article or use your a priori knowledge of the subject to make a pithy quip at the bare minimum.
You did not do that, you just hocked-up some lame half-comment, basically saying 'private sector has 1337 5k1LLzzzz - public sector suxxxorz!!!!111!!1!' that's not 'insightful'...that's why I though you should be modded down...
Without private spaceflight, we cannot explore the space in an economically efficient way.
parent is a troll...doesn't provide even the most basic support for his contention
please mod down
on topic, i think private space exploration is great...too bad no one is really doing it. right now, the only active presence of private industry in space is for SPACE TOURISM, not exploration...it's all about some rich guy doing a sub-orbital shot and going 'whooopppeee!' during his 10 minutes of 0g
space tourism is not the same as true exploration, no private industry has any legit plans/funding to actually DO any exploration...all they have is a power point presentation and a sales pitch...slashdot has discussed this thoroughly...can't we accept this and move on now?
while your proposed system is unfeasible due to geography (square mile units? maybe that will work in Kansas, but not states with variations in geography-a major determiner of population distrobution), the main point of your post is well made...
I agree completely, we need to draw congressional districts objectively. gerrymandering completely subverts the original (and very progressive) ideas about how the House should function. It's the most directly democratic part of the Federal Gov't.
regarding TFA's proposed solution, if the math works out that it's more fair, then I support it. i've seen a few posts above debating the math, but a compromise could be reached.
the main problem is that whenever a new proposal like this comes along, dem's and gop's game the system to see if the new proposal will be good or bad for them, and then create rhetoric to support whatever helps their side. it's understandable...partys try to maintain their power.
as a democrat, i'm confident that if truly done fairly, any objective system will favor the dem's in the long run. the overwhelming majority of american citizens are more left-leaning on policy issues when you remove the political rhetoric (polls and personal experience bear that out), but the problem is, less than half of our citizens vote
Every question asking for meanings ("why") rather than mechanisms ("how").
I agree, and sometimes I wish/. had a mechanism to make certain comments in very long threads 'sticky' b/c the ideas you present make 75% of the comments I read at my threshold irrelevant.
I am a devout Christian. Some would call me a 'born again', but I loath that term b/c I despise so much of what people who call themselves Christians say and do. I love science, especially cosmology. I probably could have made excellent contributions as a cosmologist or astro-physicist, but...well, the high school I went to would only teach creationism...try to get into a respected University with a high school diploma from an unaccredited school that doesn't teach evolution!
Speaking of 'in-breed hillbillies,' this church, which you'd definitely be interested in (if you haven't read about them already), is pretty much the definition of the kind of church of which you speak.
Now for a question, you're an atheist, and I was wondering if you could possibly give me an insider's insight into why some people seem to NEED for science to disprove the existence of any God? I feel like if everyone on both sides simply thought logically, they would come to the same conclusion as you did in your post and we could save ourselves alot of grief
I guess, in return for answering my question, I could possibly try to help you understand why ignorant hillbilly churches like the one I linked to above act the way they do (from a former member's perspective)...if you are interested.
looks like you're pretty angry...most likely b/c you are or once thought of yourself as a 'neo-con'...
look, I concede that many people who are not neo-cons throughout time have abused power. By nature, anyone who has power will abuse it to some extent. It is unavoidable. The reason why most people in our country (myself included) focus on neo-cons is because it is mostly THEIR policies and philosophies of governance that have resulted in the WORST examples of abuse of power in our country since their intellectual forbearers in the '50s, up to their ascendency to power in the 80s.
when talking about groups of people in government and politics, general terms of description must be used...it's a linguistic necessity.
neo-cons are just the latest and worst. Of course they aren't the first to abuse police power, but they are DEMONSTRABLY worse than previous administrations in the late 20th century...so coldly effective at using fear to manipulate the general public into accepting their freedom-stripping anarcho-capitalist policies it makes me physically ill...of course liberal types do it too, so what, the point is, neo-cons are just so much worse, and hypocritical on top of it all.
"Certainly, the roadmap projects an increasing level of autonomy," Weatherington said, adding, as "the autonomy level increases, we do believe that that will open the avenue for additional mission areas."
We all know that armed, autonomous military robots are a bad idea. It is a sign of the apocalypse.
What's worse is that current military brass take a move toward autonomy as a given
Worse still is the trend of law enforcement paralleling the military's psychotic view of population control and 'providing security'. It's no secret, police departments of major cities use UAV's for traditional law enforcement applications (murders, theft, drugs, etc). Most urban warfare device manufacturers treat law enforcement as a secondary market when designing new weapons. Just look at how Blackwater is bidding on domestic law enforcement contracts if you need further proof.
Before I start bashing Neo-cons I just have to express my amazement that the move towards a command/control/surveillance society is progressing at such a startling rate. There are always the doom and gloom futurists and their opponents who call them 'chicken little's', but what has to happen before the skeptics realize that the US and world at large really ARE heading for some sort of dystopian future as imagined in so many sci-fi movies?
It really is only a matter of time until some cheesey neo-con governor uses public panic from a horrific crime (Michael Devlin, Jon Bennet Ramsey, Columbine, etc) to justify some really scary law enforcement policies in the name of 'being tough on crime'...and the kind of thinking in TFA sets the table for that to happen.
The maximum punishment seems a tad harsh, but yeah, they should, in fact, be busted
obviously you and many/.'er have never been in trouble with the law or work for the government...the maximum punishment for what this couple did is cruel and unusual punishment
if law enforcement used this logic, then half the population would be in prison right now. Our country already has one of the highest per capita incarceration percentages, right behind Russia and China.
usually our criminal justice system manages to not be horrendous, but it's far from acceptable and your ignorance of how laws are enforced contributes to that problem.
if the general public knew what law enforcement has become, they could not handle it
>you first assume that "newspaper as we know it is circling the drain"
While it is true that some smaller market and niche newspapers are making cuts or halting publication, this hardly counts as "circling the drain"...newsmedia such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and thousands of newspapers of record in hometowns across the U.S. are as relevant and as read as ever.
Papers provide reporting, advertising, and editorial functions. These services will always be in need. What's really changing is the MEDIUM by which people access those services. Most papers have online editions now.
>second, you downplay the effect of this FCC ruling on communications in the U.S.
This is yet another example of neo-con policies favoring inefficient anarcho-capitalist money hoarding over the desperate need of the 4th estate to remain independent and free to report from a community-oriented editorial perspective. The media isn't as good as it could be of course, but rulings like these just make it easier to conglomerate and stifle local reporting and homogenizes reporting and editorial functions at the community level.
Do you really want a guy 5 states away from you reporting on local news in your area and owned by a global conglomerate? What about newspaper articles that are as informative and readable as a spam email for free viagra? this is what this FCC policy will bring us closer to
hey, honestly, you probably know more about codec's than I do
I think it is a codec, b/c I remember an old/. thread where it was discussed at length in that context...something about compression capability vs. sound quality...hope that helps
c'mon now man...this does not belong in the 'duh' file
since galleleo humans have seen rings around saturn and wondered how they got there. these types of discoveries help answer that question.
more specifically, according to TFA, many speculate that saturn's rings are the detritus from some sort of collision event in the early solar system, and that these moons are large chunks left over from that. if that's true then examining a physical specimine from these moons could tell us alot about what the early solar system was like, which in turn will tell us more about our own planet
I always thought.wma was a possible alternative to.mp3... I run xp, and used windows media player to rip a cd just out of curiosity. The files were smaller than I was expecting but sounded just as good as mp3. I ripped the same disc with.mp3 just for comparison and the files were noticably larger. I never did anything else with.wma
I'm not a windows apologist, and I've never bothered with.ogg b/c all of the music I download is mp3, but it's just a codec (as long as it's not DRM'd, but then again, any format can be DRM'd)
seems like alot of/.'ers like.ogg/vorbis, idk, but it seems inevitable that eventually there will be a new audio codec that offers analog level clarity
most good (non-apple) audio players support all three codecs, so it's a wash in my mind for now
mod parent up, this discussion is usually fun, and I like any excuse to have it...
my list of captains, from best downward
Picard>Janeway>Archer>Kirk>Sisco
Someone posted above listing Picard as the best and gave some damn fine reasons so I'll just piggyback on that to save space.
Janeway is underrated b/c people didn't like Voyager for some reason (really I still don't know why) and that her voice would sound too much like an evil English nanny at times. She was smart (former science officer), battle-tested (all over the delta-quadrant), fair (knew when to overlook infractions), and bold (time travel? hell why not!).
Archer had all of what made picard good, only less so. He was an ace pilot first and foremost i'd say. Good diplomat. I think Archer gets underrated b/c of how he was acted. Yes I said it, I love Enterprise, but Archer was played just a litte too loopy and silly by Bakula. Take Sam Shephard's version of Yeager and add a college education and that's how I think Archer should act.
Kirk is overrated b/c he's the first, and b/c the franchise liked to idolize him as a way to promote itself. Period.
Sisco was of course good all around. I like his command style, but I think what made him special is his quasi-spiritual thing w/ the wormhole aliens.
I can't believe you got modded up to +4...you just make insignificant counterpoints to parent's supposition, seemingly b/c his statement involved saying that ALIEN was a satisfying film on both action/suspense and science fiction grounds...does it offend you that such a movie exists? do you have a phd or something?
Our first clue your post was BS
Yeah, a fun movie, many good things about it, but not at all scientific.
Emphasis added to your exaggeration. Your actual point has little truth, so you wildly exaggerate in order do be pursuasive...aka flamebait. The simple fact is, ALIEN had loads of science in it.
On to your specific BS nitpicks:
1. How does the Alien grow from the tadpole that bursts out of the crewman's chest to the full-sized adult, without eating anyone or thing?
You know, a species as adaptable as the Alien species probably would be able to eat just about anything. If it's blood can eat through metal, isn't it reasonable to assume it could digest it as well?
2. no ore is that valuable or rare
Praytell, exactly what CONTEXT are you talking about 'valuable or rare'? I'm sure you already see where I'm going with this...this is the future...MANY plausible answers exist. I don't recall if the movie states specifically, but the 'ore' in question is either one we know of today in 2006 or it is not. If it IS, then shortages on earth and/or purity/quality issues, and/or environmental concerns about mining all could explain why such ore would be mined offworld. If it's NOT something we know of now, or have access to on earth, then reason for its value are self evident.
You might be a very learned scientist or capable engineer, but regrettably, you belong to the slashdot counterpoint cabal. You make irrelevant counterpoints based on spurrious logic and sometimes unfourtunately get upmodded for it. Posts like yours are flaimbait in disguise.
ps, to address another point you and others make, such as: 'Hey, it was alot smaller when it popped out of that guy's chest 10 minutes ago, how did it get so big so fast without eating??? this movie sucks!' and 'you never see people take a dump in sci-fi...that's bullshit'....
try to think like a filmaker. You only have 120 minutes or so to tell a story (42-45 if it's an hourlong TV show), why waste time showing every minute detail? It's how visual story telling works. You can't possibly show every relevant action in the story, so you count on the viewer filling in some missing details with their own IMAGINATION.
plus, why is sci-fi somehow held to a different standard with regards to showing people deficate??? How many well-received hollywood films in the last 50+ years ACTUALLY BOTHER to show the protagonist taking a crap? Now take those and subtract the times when being on the john is part of the story (Leathal WeaponII, Pulp Fiction, Dumb and Dumber, etc...) and the list is virtually nill. Why do you expect ALIEN and STAR TREK to have bathroom scenes every 30 minutes but not, say, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE or 24???
"With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners"
What??? Isn't that the biggest argument against using Linux, etc. since techies first started showing others Linux?
I know every thread I've seen involving 'why isn't linux used more' the argument usually focuses on the difficulty for non-hobbyists to get started adn use programs they are familiar with.
Also, from personal experience, when my friend first showed me his Linux machine, the first thing i thought was, "Who has time to learn all this new software when the benefits aren't worth the effort?"
Just the fact that someone thinks that the 'usability' issue is new/growing proves that techies are way out of touch with what day to day end users are thinking.
this thread is kinda off-topic, but you're right. They are SEEKING to acquire. I think the/. editors started the tagging beta for just this kind of error. If you have access to the tagging beta USE IT!
on-topic, if what people are saying here on slashdot is true, this gives AT&T a sizable chunck of the DSL infrastructure. Could this have an effect on the quest by corps. to charge per MB in the commercial market?
Just because RFID tech. is imbedded in the skin and can store information does not mean that the 'end times' are any closer or that RFID will be used by the antiChrist.
The 'mark of the beast' as described in Revelations could be almost anything. Yes, I agree that RFID *could* be used in some far-flung end times scenario, but the fact is, it doesn't matter.
The end times are a certainty (for most Christians), but the actual sequence of events is anything but. We can say for certain, however, that the mark of the beast will not be a clandestine thing that people are tricked into taking. The opposite is true, scripture is very clear that people will choose to take the mark knowing full-well the significance. Plus, wether it's RFID, a tatoo, a scarification procedure, or something else we haven't thought of, the mark will have the same consequences, so really this whole article is moot.
My take on this article is that this woman is just another fear-monger, trying to make a buck by stirring up the multitudes of Christians who are ignorant of what the Bible really says about the end times.
1. It shows people in the search industry are in tune with the resistance against DRM, and understand that DRM is anti-consumer
2. It shows that Adam Smith's invisible hand and black box are still applicable to the online music industry
A Yahoo spokeswoman said that Goldberg was 'basically trying to move the industry forward,' and wanted to prompt industry-wide discussion about what the consumer experience is."
awesome, now we need to make sure that as the debate over DRM inches into the mainstream, the context and framing of the issue stays where it should: protecting consumer rights
the only reason Canada can get away with this is the US and the protection we provide.
without US influence, Canada wouldn't mean shit to anyone.
_j
ps...I don't hate Canada, just overzealously nationalistic Canadians who like to make themselves feel better by saying everything below the 49th paralell sucks.
Slashdot Mirror
Prisons can be so secure that they hamper the ability of a prisoner to be rehabilitated...or worse, make the prisoner more unstable and at-risk for criminal behavior. Look at what's neatly called administrative segregation. It used to be known as solitary confinement, but now all types of people are put in ad-seg...people who are targets of gangs (who have done nothing wrong) for example. Some countries consider solitary confinement torture.
At any rate, solitary confinement is and for a person who is wrongfully put there, push them further down the spiral of anti-authoritarianism and harmful behavior. Each case greatly increases their likelihood of committing crimes when put back in general population or released.
The point is, even for a PRISON, you cannot say that security is always non-zero-sum. The converse is true, ALL security/civil rights issues are a zero sum game. The sooner we as a people realize that NO environment can be make truly secure, the sooner we can actually trying to start solving some of our worst problems.
The summary was wrong, should read "AI programmed to play Pacman" I agree that AI is overhyped. Now we can debate the definition of "AI" for days but the fact is, this is simple programming. You tell the computer how to do something, and it does it (heh, i know it's not that simple, but the idea is that simple). AI is a fun topic. But ultimately the question of really defining Artificial intelligence is connected to how we define Human thought. In an abstract sense, humans are just programmable meat bags, controlled by what we sense from the environment and by 'hardwired' innate reactions. The bottom line is, computers will never do anything we don't tell them to do (implicitly or explicitly), and thus, AI will always be limited by human intelligence. ps...i know how funny part of that last line sounds 'computers will never do anything we don't tell them to' when taken in the context of a Blue Screen of Death or some such failure, but remember, a human (loose term) was responsible for the faulty program with the errors that cause the BSD, so my analogy still holds up
so you agree people have the right to choose what they eat, thanks
so really, you just have a different opinion as to HOW labelling should occur, but you agree it should be labeled...that was my whole point to begin with...thanks for the support
i disagree, heh...i don't think you and I actually disagree on my main point: we have the right to know what we eat
you're right, plants have been cloned for a long time. mammals are a different issue, that's why it took us 'till Dolly the sheep to clone a mammal...it's more complex by orders of magnitude. that supports my point.
also, you're right, in the technical sense 'genetically modified' and 'cloned' are different. but, genetically modified wheat and cloned mammals are similar in that they are new (in the longview) technologies that may have very unfourtunate effects that we could not see until years later. which speaks to the point you made about 'we've been living in a narrowing genetic diversity of food product for the past few millenia.' now, c'mon man, i read 'guns germs and steele' too, and genetically modifying crops and cloning mammals for consumptions is different than some tribe in the south pacific domesticating a type of legume. we know that plant domestication has had consequences on our genome (blood types for starters), and an alteration of food on this scale at this level of complexity just offers a significant number of unknowns.
look, i love science, technology, progress, and exploration. i'm not going to scream about mammal cloning. the FDA approved it.
all I want is to have the power to look into what is happening for myself, and make an informed decision about whether I want to eat cloned mammal meat...
is that ok?
Genetically modified food, particularly meat from cloned animals, should be labeled if the FDA must approve it for sale.
This is a consumer rights issue.
All up and down this post, geneticists and biology teachers have been going on and on about telomeres and banana clones and blah blah blah...the fact is, meat from a cloned animal is NOT the same as meat from an animal born as a twin. The long term consequences of narrowing genetic diversity in biological food product (what cows have become) could have very nasty consequences.
The FDA did their studies and approved cloned meat. Fine by me, but we have the right to know WHAT we are eating...especially in regards to this issue.
cool...i think that's awesome...i'd join up (don't have any $, i'm a writer...all i have are opinions
you backed off your original point, though.
non-profit is different than private industry, and your original post was basically the tired old anarcho-capitalist argument that private industry is better than public sector. Now you bring up this 'non-profit' red herring. Your argument is inconsistent, and wrong. The public sector is the only place that's truly pushed the frontier of space, and it is best done that way, for all of the reasons given in TFA.
No, i do not. I would expect you to either skim the article or use your a priori knowledge of the subject to make a pithy quip at the bare minimum.
You did not do that, you just hocked-up some lame half-comment, basically saying 'private sector has 1337 5k1LLzzzz - public sector suxxxorz!!!!111!!1!' that's not 'insightful'...that's why I though you should be modded down...
parent is a troll...doesn't provide even the most basic support for his contention
please mod down
on topic, i think private space exploration is great...too bad no one is really doing it. right now, the only active presence of private industry in space is for SPACE TOURISM, not exploration...it's all about some rich guy doing a sub-orbital shot and going 'whooopppeee!' during his 10 minutes of 0g
space tourism is not the same as true exploration, no private industry has any legit plans/funding to actually DO any exploration...all they have is a power point presentation and a sales pitch...slashdot has discussed this thoroughly...can't we accept this and move on now?
while your proposed system is unfeasible due to geography (square mile units? maybe that will work in Kansas, but not states with variations in geography-a major determiner of population distrobution), the main point of your post is well made...
I agree completely, we need to draw congressional districts objectively. gerrymandering completely subverts the original (and very progressive) ideas about how the House should function. It's the most directly democratic part of the Federal Gov't.
regarding TFA's proposed solution, if the math works out that it's more fair, then I support it. i've seen a few posts above debating the math, but a compromise could be reached.
the main problem is that whenever a new proposal like this comes along, dem's and gop's game the system to see if the new proposal will be good or bad for them, and then create rhetoric to support whatever helps their side. it's understandable...partys try to maintain their power.
as a democrat, i'm confident that if truly done fairly, any objective system will favor the dem's in the long run. the overwhelming majority of american citizens are more left-leaning on policy issues when you remove the political rhetoric (polls and personal experience bear that out), but the problem is, less than half of our citizens vote
I agree, and sometimes I wish
I am a devout Christian. Some would call me a 'born again', but I loath that term b/c I despise so much of what people who call themselves Christians say and do. I love science, especially cosmology. I probably could have made excellent contributions as a cosmologist or astro-physicist, but...well, the high school I went to would only teach creationism...try to get into a respected University with a high school diploma from an unaccredited school that doesn't teach evolution!
Speaking of 'in-breed hillbillies,' this church, which you'd definitely be interested in (if you haven't read about them already), is pretty much the definition of the kind of church of which you speak.
Now for a question, you're an atheist, and I was wondering if you could possibly give me an insider's insight into why some people seem to NEED for science to disprove the existence of any God? I feel like if everyone on both sides simply thought logically, they would come to the same conclusion as you did in your post and we could save ourselves alot of grief
I guess, in return for answering my question, I could possibly try to help you understand why ignorant hillbilly churches like the one I linked to above act the way they do (from a former member's perspective)...if you are interested.
did you read my post, I acknowledge that both sides...that's not my argument. I contend that the neo-cons are significantly WORSE...
re-read my post
hey AC,
looks like you're pretty angry...most likely b/c you are or once thought of yourself as a 'neo-con'...
look, I concede that many people who are not neo-cons throughout time have abused power. By nature, anyone who has power will abuse it to some extent. It is unavoidable. The reason why most people in our country (myself included) focus on neo-cons is because it is mostly THEIR policies and philosophies of governance that have resulted in the WORST examples of abuse of power in our country since their intellectual forbearers in the '50s, up to their ascendency to power in the 80s.
when talking about groups of people in government and politics, general terms of description must be used...it's a linguistic necessity.
neo-cons are just the latest and worst. Of course they aren't the first to abuse police power, but they are DEMONSTRABLY worse than previous administrations in the late 20th century...so coldly effective at using fear to manipulate the general public into accepting their freedom-stripping anarcho-capitalist policies it makes me physically ill...of course liberal types do it too, so what, the point is, neo-cons are just so much worse, and hypocritical on top of it all.
We all know that armed, autonomous military robots are a bad idea. It is a sign of the apocalypse.
What's worse is that current military brass take a move toward autonomy as a given
Worse still is the trend of law enforcement paralleling the military's psychotic view of population control and 'providing security'. It's no secret, police departments of major cities use UAV's for traditional law enforcement applications (murders, theft, drugs, etc). Most urban warfare device manufacturers treat law enforcement as a secondary market when designing new weapons. Just look at how Blackwater is bidding on domestic law enforcement contracts if you need further proof.
Before I start bashing Neo-cons I just have to express my amazement that the move towards a command/control/surveillance society is progressing at such a startling rate. There are always the doom and gloom futurists and their opponents who call them 'chicken little's', but what has to happen before the skeptics realize that the US and world at large really ARE heading for some sort of dystopian future as imagined in so many sci-fi movies?
It really is only a matter of time until some cheesey neo-con governor uses public panic from a horrific crime (Michael Devlin, Jon Bennet Ramsey, Columbine, etc) to justify some really scary law enforcement policies in the name of 'being tough on crime'...and the kind of thinking in TFA sets the table for that to happen.
Neo-cons are ruining America...tell your friends
obviously you and many
if law enforcement used this logic, then half the population would be in prison right now. Our country already has one of the highest per capita incarceration percentages, right behind Russia and China.
usually our criminal justice system manages to not be horrendous, but it's far from acceptable and your ignorance of how laws are enforced contributes to that problem.
if the general public knew what law enforcement has become, they could not handle it
your line of thinking is dangerous
>you first assume that "newspaper as we know it is circling the drain"
While it is true that some smaller market and niche newspapers are making cuts or halting publication, this hardly counts as "circling the drain"...newsmedia such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and thousands of newspapers of record in hometowns across the U.S. are as relevant and as read as ever.
Papers provide reporting, advertising, and editorial functions. These services will always be in need. What's really changing is the MEDIUM by which people access those services. Most papers have online editions now.
>second, you downplay the effect of this FCC ruling on communications in the U.S.
This is yet another example of neo-con policies favoring inefficient anarcho-capitalist money hoarding over the desperate need of the 4th estate to remain independent and free to report from a community-oriented editorial perspective. The media isn't as good as it could be of course, but rulings like these just make it easier to conglomerate and stifle local reporting and homogenizes reporting and editorial functions at the community level.
Do you really want a guy 5 states away from you reporting on local news in your area and owned by a global conglomerate? What about newspaper articles that are as informative and readable as a spam email for free viagra? this is what this FCC policy will bring us closer to
hey, honestly, you probably know more about codec's than I do
/. thread where it was discussed at length in that context...something about compression capability vs. sound quality...hope that helps
I think it is a codec, b/c I remember an old
c'mon now man...this does not belong in the 'duh' file
since galleleo humans have seen rings around saturn and wondered how they got there. these types of discoveries help answer that question.
more specifically, according to TFA, many speculate that saturn's rings are the detritus from some sort of collision event in the early solar system, and that these moons are large chunks left over from that. if that's true then examining a physical specimine from these moons could tell us alot about what the early solar system was like, which in turn will tell us more about our own planet
this is science, not 'duh'
ok, i learned this in mass media law and regulation class:
the electro-magnetic spectrum is part of nature. it exists naturally. man-made instruments use it, but the spectrum itself is natural public land
it falls under federal regulation because it is 'public land', just like national forrests
the feds grant licenses for various entities to use public land, so in the same way they grant licenses to use the spectrum
that's the story
I always thought .wma was a possible alternative to .mp3 ... I run xp, and used windows media player to rip a cd just out of curiosity. The files were smaller than I was expecting but sounded just as good as mp3. I ripped the same disc with .mp3 just for comparison and the files were noticably larger. I never did anything else with .wma
.ogg b/c all of the music I download is mp3, but it's just a codec (as long as it's not DRM'd, but then again, any format can be DRM'd)
/.'ers like .ogg/vorbis, idk, but it seems inevitable that eventually there will be a new audio codec that offers analog level clarity
I'm not a windows apologist, and I've never bothered with
seems like alot of
most good (non-apple) audio players support all three codecs, so it's a wash in my mind for now
_j
mod parent up, this discussion is usually fun, and I like any excuse to have it...
my list of captains, from best downward
Picard>Janeway>Archer>Kirk>Sisco
Someone posted above listing Picard as the best and gave some damn fine reasons so I'll just piggyback on that to save space.
Janeway is underrated b/c people didn't like Voyager for some reason (really I still don't know why) and that her voice would sound too much like an evil English nanny at times. She was smart (former science officer), battle-tested (all over the delta-quadrant), fair (knew when to overlook infractions), and bold (time travel? hell why not!).
Archer had all of what made picard good, only less so. He was an ace pilot first and foremost i'd say. Good diplomat. I think Archer gets underrated b/c of how he was acted. Yes I said it, I love Enterprise, but Archer was played just a litte too loopy and silly by Bakula. Take Sam Shephard's version of Yeager and add a college education and that's how I think Archer should act.
Kirk is overrated b/c he's the first, and b/c the franchise liked to idolize him as a way to promote itself. Period.
Sisco was of course good all around. I like his command style, but I think what made him special is his quasi-spiritual thing w/ the wormhole aliens.
_j
I can't believe you got modded up to +4...you just make insignificant counterpoints to parent's supposition, seemingly b/c his statement involved saying that ALIEN was a satisfying film on both action/suspense and science fiction grounds...does it offend you that such a movie exists? do you have a phd or something?
Our first clue your post was BS
Yeah, a fun movie, many good things about it, but not at all scientific.
Emphasis added to your exaggeration. Your actual point has little truth, so you wildly exaggerate in order do be pursuasive...aka flamebait. The simple fact is, ALIEN had loads of science in it.
On to your specific BS nitpicks:
1. How does the Alien grow from the tadpole that bursts out of the crewman's chest to the full-sized adult, without eating anyone or thing?
You know, a species as adaptable as the Alien species probably would be able to eat just about anything. If it's blood can eat through metal, isn't it reasonable to assume it could digest it as well?
2. no ore is that valuable or rare
Praytell, exactly what CONTEXT are you talking about 'valuable or rare'? I'm sure you already see where I'm going with this...this is the future...MANY plausible answers exist. I don't recall if the movie states specifically, but the 'ore' in question is either one we know of today in 2006 or it is not. If it IS, then shortages on earth and/or purity/quality issues, and/or environmental concerns about mining all could explain why such ore would be mined offworld. If it's NOT something we know of now, or have access to on earth, then reason for its value are self evident.
You might be a very learned scientist or capable engineer, but regrettably, you belong to the slashdot counterpoint cabal. You make irrelevant counterpoints based on spurrious logic and sometimes unfourtunately get upmodded for it. Posts like yours are flaimbait in disguise.
ps, to address another point you and others make, such as: 'Hey, it was alot smaller when it popped out of that guy's chest 10 minutes ago, how did it get so big so fast without eating??? this movie sucks!' and 'you never see people take a dump in sci-fi...that's bullshit'....
try to think like a filmaker. You only have 120 minutes or so to tell a story (42-45 if it's an hourlong TV show), why waste time showing every minute detail? It's how visual story telling works. You can't possibly show every relevant action in the story, so you count on the viewer filling in some missing details with their own IMAGINATION.
plus, why is sci-fi somehow held to a different standard with regards to showing people deficate??? How many well-received hollywood films in the last 50+ years ACTUALLY BOTHER to show the protagonist taking a crap? Now take those and subtract the times when being on the john is part of the story (Leathal WeaponII, Pulp Fiction, Dumb and Dumber, etc...) and the list is virtually nill. Why do you expect ALIEN and STAR TREK to have bathroom scenes every 30 minutes but not, say, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE or 24???
from the article summary:
"With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners"
What??? Isn't that the biggest argument against using Linux, etc. since techies first started showing others Linux?
I know every thread I've seen involving 'why isn't linux used more' the argument usually focuses on the difficulty for non-hobbyists to get started adn use programs they are familiar with.
Also, from personal experience, when my friend first showed me his Linux machine, the first thing i thought was, "Who has time to learn all this new software when the benefits aren't worth the effort?"
Just the fact that someone thinks that the 'usability' issue is new/growing proves that techies are way out of touch with what day to day end users are thinking.
this thread is kinda off-topic, but you're right. They are SEEKING to acquire. I think the /. editors started the tagging beta for just this kind of error. If you have access to the tagging beta USE IT!
on-topic, if what people are saying here on slashdot is true, this gives AT&T a sizable chunck of the DSL infrastructure. Could this have an effect on the quest by corps. to charge per MB in the commercial market?
hope not
Just because RFID tech. is imbedded in the skin and can store information does not mean that the 'end times' are any closer or that RFID will be used by the antiChrist.
The 'mark of the beast' as described in Revelations could be almost anything. Yes, I agree that RFID *could* be used in some far-flung end times scenario, but the fact is, it doesn't matter.
The end times are a certainty (for most Christians), but the actual sequence of events is anything but. We can say for certain, however, that the mark of the beast will not be a clandestine thing that people are tricked into taking. The opposite is true, scripture is very clear that people will choose to take the mark knowing full-well the significance. Plus, wether it's RFID, a tatoo, a scarification procedure, or something else we haven't thought of, the mark will have the same consequences, so really this whole article is moot.
My take on this article is that this woman is just another fear-monger, trying to make a buck by stirring up the multitudes of Christians who are ignorant of what the Bible really says about the end times.
and for yahoo...
this news is good to hear on a number of levels.
1. It shows people in the search industry are in tune with the resistance against DRM, and understand that DRM is anti-consumer
2. It shows that Adam Smith's invisible hand and black box are still applicable to the online music industry
A Yahoo spokeswoman said that Goldberg was 'basically trying to move the industry forward,' and wanted to prompt industry-wide discussion about what the consumer experience is."
awesome, now we need to make sure that as the debate over DRM inches into the mainstream, the context and framing of the issue stays where it should: protecting consumer rights
the only reason Canada can get away with this is the US and the protection we provide.
without US influence, Canada wouldn't mean shit to anyone.
_j
ps...I don't hate Canada, just overzealously nationalistic Canadians who like to make themselves feel better by saying everything below the 49th paralell sucks.