Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I would readily admit the evidence against Afghanistan/Iraq might not be strong (the latter, in particular) but I think there's a large amount against Al-Qaeda.
Got a link to the Washington Post story? Also, arguing that only one Israeli died indicates that Israel warned "its citizens" (and, therefore had a hand in the attack) is pretty ridiculous. The fact that 5 Israeli's were reportedly seen 'high fiving' also indicates nothing.
You're grounds are, so far, that the Washington Post (supposedly) claimed an Israeli company was warned in advance of the attacks.
Evidence that Al-Qaeda were involved includes Osama Bin Laden saying that they did, as well as more evidence (trail of funds, trailing the hijackers, etc).
Forgive me while I still consider your post flamebait.
Manta
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 1
Unless you substantiate any of the points, they are simply flamebait.
The focus of the article should not be "Israel has done something" but that "some place has chosen OpenOffice over Microsoft Office".
For example, in the "UK approves 5.8Ghz for broadband", I think the majority would have considered people to be trolling if there were posts about the UK going to war in Iraq, looking for WMDs, etc.
While the stuff may have been sensible (just like pro-/anti-Israel posts), it would still be trolling. Similarly, posting about a highly subjective political situation when that is not the focus of the article, simply to provoke a response, is nothing more than trolling.
"How is a Jew supposed to use an application if only the command line supports their tongue?"
I assume the tongue your refer to is Hebrew and it's worth pointing out that not all Jews' native tongue is Hebrew (and nor, in fact, do all Jews know Hebrew) and conversely, non-Jews may also require Hebrew support for whatever reason.
While Israel may be pretty much all Jews who would welcome Hebrew language support, there is a distinction between the Hebrew language and the Jewish religion (one is a language, one is a religion), and using the two interchangably just causes problems and confusion - so I suggest you pick your words more carefully.
So, what does a password of 'gxgxgxgxgxgxgxgxgxgx' tell you about yourself?
Manta
Re:At last, an up to date Debian
on
Libranet 2.8 Review
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Debian does not force you to take this approach; you choose to.
If you wan't bleeding edge, use unstable/testing.
Yes -- Debian stable has programs that are (in some cases) slightly out of date, and do not have the features of newest releases. The clue is in the name, though; they have been rigourously tested for stability. If you want to sacrifice stability (aimed more at servers) for features (aimed more at desktops), use unstable/testing. You don't even have to have all programs as unstable/testing -- you can choose which ones to pin where.
When will people stop criticising Debian for being conservative when it isn't; Debian does have bleeding edge versions of most of the packages available, in the unstable/testing repositories. You *just* have to tell it to use them.
...an unintuitive interface, limited customisation, frequent minor upgrades that make no difference, application preferences that you can't control, lots of unexplained OS options, poor documentation, display settings that aren't preserved when you open new folders, useless graphical transition effects, transparency that causes massive slowdown, one crashing application managing to take down your system, slow start-up times, still no built in compatibility with non-native file systems......Microsoft really are trying to create their own OSX!
For those people that think I'm trolling, I'm not -- I really do have all these problems with OSX. OSX may be intuitive if you've used a Mac OS before but it sure as hell isn't for anyone else (in my experience).
If only Broadcom released Airport drivers for Linux, I could dump OSX once and for all:)
Apparently First Great Western trains (that's a UK train company, for those not in the know) have begun trialling this technology for their mainline service between Bristol and London.
Theoretically the time for this journey could be cut to just over a minute, but taking into account the breaking zone needed, and the areas of 'slow track' where the train runs at 30Mph maximum, the estimated time for this journey would be somewhere in the region of 2 hours; a marked 5 minute saving in time.
Before anyone else says it, there are Linux drivers available, although they are in their early stages.
The wlan-ng project has early stage support for the wusb12 card.
More details available @ the Linux-USB device site.
Luckily they don't use the hideous Broadcom chipset, which still does not have Linux support, even though it's sold in Dell, Linksys, Belkin and Apple (new Powerbooks, anyone?) wireless products, to name but a few. *grr*
I just got an Apple Powerbook 12", and this is my list of reasons why I hate OSX:
(For background, I come from experience of Linux command line/desktop [KDE, mainly] and Windows [for a greater period of time].)
1) There is no 'Menu' button. I do not want to have to run an Application to get a list of programs which I then have to click through. Mouse-over opening menus is nice. It doesn't have to be called Start, or 'K', or anything fancy but a button that has menus and sub-menus listing my appications would be a start.
2) I want the windows to store my settings. If I list applications by details, rather than as naff, huge icons, unless there is an option that I can find to tell it to store my settings, I expect it to be done automatically.
3) I want to be able to tab through all my Windows. Not just '1' of each application. If I have a terminal up and 2 Mozilla windows (not 1 window with tabs), I want the Apple key + Tab to be able to go through all 3.
4) I want it to tell me -- without requiring me to search in depth, and spend about 20 minutes -- what these shortcut keys are. I can't be the only one used to Linux/Windows, surely?
5) I want to be able to change settings in the 'Control Centre' without having to go back to the menu of options at each stage. This is just usability. If I want to go from one option to the next, I have to click one, which redraws my window, make changes, then click the button to show all the options. I can't a) look at more than one and b) have a list of options in the background (if you're changing something in every category it's handy to see where you're upto).
6) I want the maximise button (the +) to fscking well maximise. I don't mean 'get bigger' - I WILL DRAG THE WINDOW IF I WANT THAT. I WANT YOU TO MAXIMISE.
7) I want to be able to tell OSX what I want click events to do -- I want the double click on the title bar to MAXIMISE. NOT MINISE. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL IT THIS.
8) I want the terminal to run faster than my P200 running Linux. If I run the default shell, or even more so bash, it crawls. I use the terminal to do things more quickly (maybe Apple knows this and deliberately sabotage it?).
9) I don't want to wait 10 minutes to boot up, which it sometimes feels like I have to.
10) When I put in the install CD after having formatted my disk, I'd like it to tell me it's not doing anything. I don't want to wait an hour, only to check online and realise that it doesn't do anything until I hold down some random combination of keys (which it doesn't say on screen) and go into debug mode that automatically starts the installer.
11) Why does my battery get chewed so badly? I get 3-3.5 hours in Linux, with an optical mouse plugged in but only 2 in OSX, with nothing in.
12) Why does my DVD/CD spin up randomly? This wastes battery life and is particularly annoying when I haven't tried to access anything on the CD/DVD or run anything that would need it.
13) Why can I not set power options directly after an install until rebooting? I've reinstalled twice and this annoys me. It doesn't say anything, I just can't unlock it until reboot. Why?
14) Why doesn't the manual tell me about what Mac thinks are executables? About what disk images are too Macs, etc? I now have undeletable shortcuts on my desktop.
15) Why are there lots of links in Finder to 'Applications' or 'Scripts' that WON'T RUN?
16) Why is it called 'Finder' in the first place?
17) Is it possible to navigate to root directory in 'Finder'? If so, it's got me stumped.
18) Why will it not auto update Stuff-It Expander in the OSX updates thing? How come when Stuff-It runs, it detectes there's an update, I click 'Not now', and it crashes? And this was trying to extract the update for itself. Prey tell how I'm meant to update it.
19) Give me an option to remove the desktop menu. I don't want a desktop menu at the top. I'm happy with my non-permanent ones. Really, I don't want it.
20) Why can I not drag files onto the CD-RW, or edit one that has some fi
The Guardian's bias is well known, and its legal opinions ludicrous (note that it calls our invasion of Iraq illegal, when--for all its faults--it is patently not). I should mistrust it did it state the sky blue, grass green or clouds white and fluffy.
It is? And secondly, that opinion is not ludicrous. In fact it's so un-ludicrous that the general secretary of the United Nations happened to agree. So your use of the word patently is, well, patently lacking in clarity at least.
I believe that imprisonment is a far worse punishment than death.
How many times have you died? How can anyone be in a position to make that claim?
You should take a statistics course, as in it you would learn that it is impossible to be 100% confident about anything.
I do take a statistics course but thank you for arguing my point, even so. It is impossible to be 100% certain so in my opinion, the risk of innocent men being executed is still far too high.
Note that this all hinges on acceptance that conception marks the start of life, and thus that abortion is murder. Were this not the case, then there would be no legal grounds to even argue the point, as it would then be a moral issue (and hence, one I'd not legislate against--note that while I am against voluntary euthanasia, I believe it should be legal). However, there are good scientific and areligious reasons to believe that life begins at conception.
Yes, this is where we basically differ. Rather than conception, though, I think it matters largely on when pain is first felt, and remembered -- the latter being important. I'm not going to change your opinion so I'm going to save my fingers.
There is no such thing as an unfertilised embryo.
Do correct me if I'm wrong but surely an unfertilised embryo is an egg (as you point out). In which case, there is such a thing. Unfortunately there is no such thing as an unfertilised egg, since by definition an egg is unfertilised, so it's a tautology.
Research has allowed eggs to evolve as though they were embryonic -- so they can be used for testing -- but without fertilisation. So I think it's pretty fair to call them unfertilised embryos. Although technically eggs, that is what an unfertilised embryo is.
That is not my reading thereof. As I understand it, only lawful combatants are accorded the full protection of the Conventions (yes, there are several). If one does not abide by their terms, one is not protected thereby. In fact, unless I'm mistaken one can still execute unlawful combatants (e.g. those not in uniform, or who use hollow-point rounds or other inhumane munitions) out of hand.
Yes, of course. You can no more give a man a dozen years of his life back than you can give him the rest of his life back. Given that prison is an utterly vile place, it may very well be that it is better to die after a year of it than after forty years of it.
I can't actually believe you can think that. Obviously you can't give someone years of their life back but the step of giving them years of freedom somewhat makes ammends. Even so, taking away someone's life is barely comparable to imprisoning them.
That's why our system has so many safeguards built into it: the presumption of innocence; the rules of evidence; the right to appeal; trial by jury &c.
I feel you're contradicting yourself by saying your system lets a fraction through but you would prefer dozens of guilty to go free. How can you even be willing to accept this tiny fraction? Until there is a foolproof system (which, I suggest will never be the case), it is grossly unfair to accept even the smallest fraction of innocent men being executed.
Why should the innocent child suffer the death penalty for a crime it did not commit?
Why should the child be forced to live a life of cruelty, poverty and misery? I'm not saying children shouldn't be put up for adoption or that abortion should be some common-place thing when mothers can't perfectly support their children. I just don't believe there should be a blanket one rule for all. What is the baby will be born with a permanent, possibly terminal, disability? Is it euthenasia then?
There are a lot of things I believe are or may be immoral: polygamy; drug use; extramarital sex. I also firmly believe that they should be legal. Who decides what is or is not moral? The law is a powerful weapon, and should only be used when one man harms another: it should punish rape, theft, murder, fraud and not a whole lot else. I don't want you telling me that I cannot live according to the precepts of my religion; nor do I want to tell you that you cannot live according to the precepts of your philosophy.
I take your point that laws should not be determined by morals.
Of course not--I never said I would be, or that anyone should be. But I would also be quite annoyed if I lost twenty years of my life, or if I died an innocent in prison. In any case, I would fight for my innocence as strongly as possible, even after every avenue was exhausted. But a guilty man would do the same, and society can hardly be expected to exempt from punishment everyone who might be innocent--because every guilty man might be innocent.
I expect, if it were possible to decide, you would be less annoyed at being imprisoned before being exonerated and cleared and set free than at being killed and later found to be innocent and cleared. Society can be expected to give everyone an indefinite chance to be exonerated, which execution prevents.
I'm afraid that you have an erroneous idea of what a stem cell is. A stem cell is taken from an embryo (every embryo is fertilised: were it not, it be a seperate egg and sperm), which is a human being with a genetic makeup independent of either parent (well, except for clones...). Experimenting with and killing sperm or eggs must not be illegal (it may be immoral or not, but that is irrelevant); experimenting with or killing human beings must be.
Actually, there are devised techniques to create stemm and somatic cells from unfertilized embryos. But, even if this were not the case, this comes down to our different views on abortion, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Criminal law is a matter of national, not international, interest. The US may deal with their citizens as the US would like; so too for any other nation.
According to the Geneva convention, anyone taken captive during a war should be treated as a POW, with no exceptions. The US did not comply as many of the prisoners in Guantanamo bay were captured during the "War on terror" in Afghanistan.
The same may be said of someone who spends his life--or even a few years--in jail, as well. Our legal system does its absolute best to ensure that those who are convicted are actually guilty. Having done the most possible to free the innocent, it then metes out punishment as appropriate to the crime. Yes, there are mistakes, but they are few and far between. One can no more give a man back a lost year of his life than give him back his life--why is it any better to imprison him than kill him?
Why is it better to imprison someone than kill them? Is that really a serious question? How many people do you know who are in prison who can appeal? How many dead people do you see appealing?
I would rather see 10 guilty people set free than 1 innocent man put to death. I know I will not be one of the guilty 10 set free, but I do know I could be the 1 innocent. That is my problem with the death penalty.
Not that I want to see someone put in prison but the point is there is no means to fix an innocent mean put to death, but there are ways to free an innocent man from imprisonment.
Abortion is murder: it is the killing of another human being. Your argument is akin to `theft: it's all well and good to say no to theft, but when it's your stomach that empty, it's different.' Guess what--it's not. Murder is rightly illegal; abortion is murder; therefor abortion is rightly illegal.
OK, you're a 13 year old girl from a broken home, with abusive parents, who gets assaulted, beaten up, and raped. You fall pregnant. Let's look at your choices. You can have the child. You can have the child and put it up for adoption. You can have an abortion. As a human being I would not like to see any life brought in to this world where it has no chance of receiving the quality of life it deserves. If you think so, that's tantamount to saying "Let's raise a kid inhumanely!". Murder is not as black and white as you make out -- I'd consider abortion to more akin to euthenasia -- sparing someone from an unnecessary low quality of life.
Although I accept that it may not be legally right, or right in any non-moral way, my point is that it's not fair for someone to judge the situation without having been in it. I'm sure if it was your daughter, or you, you wouldn't feel that it was illegal -- or at least that it should be illegal.
Whether abortion is moral or not is NOT immaterial to whether or not it should be legal. Legality is not independent of morals. This isn't from a religious point of view but just from common sense. Legality does not supercede any form of sensible logic, and if something is not moral, it should not be legal.
Convenience doesn't make it any more right. That a man might testify against me in court gives me no right to kill him. That his money may pay for my hospital bills gives me no right to steal from him.
It's got nothing to do with convenience. It's about narrow mindedness. It's not convenient that you see how other's feel when you're forced to look at the same problem through their eyes, it's open mindedness and apathy. I'll try to make my point more clear for you:
If you were put in the situation that one of those people find themselves in (as I tried to give examples of), and you would be perfectly happy with what they would have to face/put up with, then that is fine. If this is not the case, then there is no justification for you supporting it.
If you were innocent of a murder crime and were going to be put to your death, are you se
Well, I concur it is not complete on-topic but I am talking about people being detained for terrorism acts, which the topic talks about. I also talk about allowing authorities to hold him indefinitely without charging him with a crime, which is in the topic.
[Note, this is more of a general rant rather than specifically about Mike Hawash but my point still stands.]
It's disgusting how America and Great Britain can be allowed to go against so many international conventions and strip people of any rights.
There are specific conventions on how to treat suspected criminals, or terrorists, which should be adhered to. Rather than follow conventions, America decided to put people suspected of terrorism in a deliberate state of limbo where they can do anything they want.
These people are not given any legal representation, they do not even need to be accused of any crime (and given than some were released without charge it's probably fair to say not all are guilty of any crime at all), there are no standards for their conditions, they do not need to be treated humanely, they do not need to be allowed visitation from independent organisations (such as Amnesty, Red Cross, etc) and they do not have to be put to trial. They can be held in this state of limbo for as long as they administration want them to be.
For a country (or countries if you include Great Britain - but they contravene human rights to a far lesser extent, and not as written above) that prides itself on its freedom of speech and human rights, it's disgusting that they treat anyone in this way. And it's even more disgusting that they are one of the premier countries to point out international breaches by other countries - particularly when it favours the situation they're in.
My view on the problem with American society is that although everyone pretends to be friendly and respectful of each other and their views, it's very much each person for themself. People don't think that they'll ever be in a situation when they'll need help, so don't support actions to benefit those who do.
For example, the death penalty. It's all very well saying "Fry them!" or whatever, but when you're accused and found guilty of a crime you didn't commit, or you get found guilty because you're black, poor and can't afford proper legal representation, it's a whole new story. Abortions: it's all well and good to say no to abortions but when it's your daughter, your sister or you who's pregnant and shouldn'tt to give birth for whatever reason, it's different. When your family member/friend is dying from Parkinson's or some other degenerate disease, you'll be wishing the government would allow stem cell research, or at least sooner. I've forgotten who it was but when one president got some degenerative disease which could be potentially eradicated with enough research into stem cells (which don't use any fertilised eggs), although he had been staunchly against the research his whole life, the first thing the first lady did was speak directly to President Bush to try get it allowed.
The shear selfishness - while not always apparent/transparent - of many American's is shocking. What if you were accused of some terrorist charge which you didn't commit? Put away on an island with no contact to anyone - even a lawyer, for a simple misunderstanding.
"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
There are a lot of non-specific clan channels that have friendly banter. Banter, anyway:) Also, a lot of clan channels very rarely talk about clan stuff, or even gaming stuff. In fact, we talk about clan specific so rarely in #tjd, we often stray into geeky/technical discussions. My most recent favourite culminated in deciding that Ian Flemming was secretly a coder:
#tjd sad topic for the day. =/ Today we have been proving that Ian Fleming was a geek:
Daemons are Forever
The World is Not Enum
function Tomorrow() {
return 1;
die("I'm dead"); }
while (!true) say("never again");
07016534671571
die("another day");
$ ps aux | grep daylights jil01 5980 0.0 0.4 1544 580 pts/2 S 13:40 0:00 daylights
A lot of people seem to be asking "What's the point of an IRC service that prevents file users sharing warez?".
Well, if there was no point, why would the (arguably) largest IRC network have a very strict anti-warez rules? That's Quakenet, by the way - and yes, it is my choice of IRC network.
Clearly there is a demand for a warez-free (OK, no specific file transfer channel) network. And yes, I've just continued the trend and said "Don't worry, the IRC network I use rocks, even if Dalnet sucks!";)
Clearly everyone has missed the best story...
on
Spammer Gets Spam Mailed
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Clearly the best story on that page is the genius of the person using Fedex's parcel tracking to find out where Santa lives:)
Tracking a package to Santa
South Haven photojournalist David McCreery uses Federal Express a lot and is fascinated with the tracking feature on the FedEx Web site (www.federalexpress.com) that lets you watch as your package makes its way to its destination.
"I send FedEx packages every few weeks," he says. "Once, I sent a package to Bowling Green and watched it leave Michigan via Flint for Memphis, come back to Flint and then drive to Ohio."
So, this being the holiday season, he decided to FedEx a letter to Santa, wondering: "How far would a package to the North Pole go? How would it get there? Where would it end up? Who would sign for it?"
You can follow the progress of his letter on his personal Web site (www.davidm.net), where he posted his letter and the FedEx tracking number.
Slashdot Mirror
No -- *I* didn't invite XML!
Manta
I would readily admit the evidence against Afghanistan/Iraq might not be strong (the latter, in particular) but I think there's a large amount against Al-Qaeda.
Got a link to the Washington Post story?
Also, arguing that only one Israeli died indicates that Israel warned "its citizens" (and, therefore had a hand in the attack) is pretty ridiculous.
The fact that 5 Israeli's were reportedly seen 'high fiving' also indicates nothing.
You're grounds are, so far, that the Washington Post (supposedly) claimed an Israeli company was warned in advance of the attacks.
Evidence that Al-Qaeda were involved includes Osama Bin Laden saying that they did, as well as more evidence (trail of funds, trailing the hijackers, etc).
Forgive me while I still consider your post flamebait.
Manta
Unless you substantiate any of the points, they are simply flamebait.
Manta
Quitting drinking coffee's easy. I've done it thousands of times. Manta PS. Old joke, for the humour impaired.
This is /. - talking about news for nerds.
The focus of the article should not be "Israel has done something" but that "some place has chosen OpenOffice over Microsoft Office".
For example, in the "UK approves 5.8Ghz for broadband", I think the majority would have considered people to be trolling if there were posts about the UK going to war in Iraq, looking for WMDs, etc.
While the stuff may have been sensible (just like pro-/anti-Israel posts), it would still be trolling. Similarly, posting about a highly subjective political situation when that is not the focus of the article, simply to provoke a response, is nothing more than trolling.
Manta
"How is a Jew supposed to use an application if only the command line supports their tongue?"
I assume the tongue your refer to is Hebrew and it's worth pointing out that not all Jews' native tongue is Hebrew (and nor, in fact, do all Jews know Hebrew) and conversely, non-Jews may also require Hebrew support for whatever reason.
While Israel may be pretty much all Jews who would welcome Hebrew language support, there is a distinction between the Hebrew language and the Jewish religion (one is a language, one is a religion), and using the two interchangably just causes problems and confusion - so I suggest you pick your words more carefully.
Manta
It's official... Osama Bin Laden has been declared World Hide and Seek champion ;O)
Manta
So, what does a password of 'gxgxgxgxgxgxgxgxgxgx' tell you about yourself?
Manta
Debian does not force you to take this approach; you choose to.
;)
If you wan't bleeding edge, use unstable/testing.
Yes -- Debian stable has programs that are (in some cases) slightly out of date, and do not have the features of newest releases. The clue is in the name, though; they have been rigourously tested for stability. If you want to sacrifice stability (aimed more at servers) for features (aimed more at desktops), use unstable/testing. You don't even have to have all programs as unstable/testing -- you can choose which ones to pin where.
When will people stop criticising Debian for being conservative when it isn't; Debian does have bleeding edge versions of most of the packages available, in the unstable/testing repositories. You *just* have to tell it to use them.
Now I'll have my coffee and moan less
Manta
...an unintuitive interface, ...Microsoft really are trying to create their own OSX!
:)
limited customisation,
frequent minor upgrades that make no difference,
application preferences that you can't control,
lots of unexplained OS options,
poor documentation,
display settings that aren't preserved when you open new folders,
useless graphical transition effects,
transparency that causes massive slowdown,
one crashing application managing to take down your system,
slow start-up times,
still no built in compatibility with non-native file systems...
For those people that think I'm trolling, I'm not -- I really do have all these problems with OSX. OSX may be intuitive if you've used a Mac OS before but it sure as hell isn't for anyone else (in my experience).
If only Broadcom released Airport drivers for Linux, I could dump OSX once and for all
Manta
Apparently First Great Western trains (that's a UK train company, for those not in the know) have begun trialling this technology for their mainline service between Bristol and London.
Theoretically the time for this journey could be cut to just over a minute, but taking into account the breaking zone needed, and the areas of 'slow track' where the train runs at 30Mph maximum, the estimated time for this journey would be somewhere in the region of 2 hours; a marked 5 minute saving in time.
The wlan-ng project has early stage support for the wusb12 card.
More details available @ the Linux-USB device site.
Luckily they don't use the hideous Broadcom chipset, which still does not have Linux support, even though it's sold in Dell, Linksys, Belkin and Apple (new Powerbooks, anyone?) wireless products, to name but a few. *grr*
http://www.choosehosting.com/~jon/images/DNFnfomin ister.JPG
(For background, I come from experience of Linux command line/desktop [KDE, mainly] and Windows [for a greater period of time].)
1) There is no 'Menu' button. I do not want to have to run an Application to get a list of programs which I then have to click through. Mouse-over opening menus is nice. It doesn't have to be called Start, or 'K', or anything fancy but a button that has menus and sub-menus listing my appications would be a start.
2) I want the windows to store my settings. If I list applications by details, rather than as naff, huge icons, unless there is an option that I can find to tell it to store my settings, I expect it to be done automatically.
3) I want to be able to tab through all my Windows. Not just '1' of each application. If I have a terminal up and 2 Mozilla windows (not 1 window with tabs), I want the Apple key + Tab to be able to go through all 3.
4) I want it to tell me -- without requiring me to search in depth, and spend about 20 minutes -- what these shortcut keys are. I can't be the only one used to Linux/Windows, surely?
5) I want to be able to change settings in the 'Control Centre' without having to go back to the menu of options at each stage. This is just usability. If I want to go from one option to the next, I have to click one, which redraws my window, make changes, then click the button to show all the options. I can't a) look at more than one and b) have a list of options in the background (if you're changing something in every category it's handy to see where you're upto).
6) I want the maximise button (the +) to fscking well maximise. I don't mean 'get bigger' - I WILL DRAG THE WINDOW IF I WANT THAT. I WANT YOU TO MAXIMISE.
7) I want to be able to tell OSX what I want click events to do -- I want the double click on the title bar to MAXIMISE. NOT MINISE. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL IT THIS.
8) I want the terminal to run faster than my P200 running Linux. If I run the default shell, or even more so bash, it crawls. I use the terminal to do things more quickly (maybe Apple knows this and deliberately sabotage it?).
9) I don't want to wait 10 minutes to boot up, which it sometimes feels like I have to.
10) When I put in the install CD after having formatted my disk, I'd like it to tell me it's not doing anything. I don't want to wait an hour, only to check online and realise that it doesn't do anything until I hold down some random combination of keys (which it doesn't say on screen) and go into debug mode that automatically starts the installer.
11) Why does my battery get chewed so badly? I get 3-3.5 hours in Linux, with an optical mouse plugged in but only 2 in OSX, with nothing in.
12) Why does my DVD/CD spin up randomly? This wastes battery life and is particularly annoying when I haven't tried to access anything on the CD/DVD or run anything that would need it.
13) Why can I not set power options directly after an install until rebooting? I've reinstalled twice and this annoys me. It doesn't say anything, I just can't unlock it until reboot. Why?
14) Why doesn't the manual tell me about what Mac thinks are executables? About what disk images are too Macs, etc? I now have undeletable shortcuts on my desktop.
15) Why are there lots of links in Finder to 'Applications' or 'Scripts' that WON'T RUN?
16) Why is it called 'Finder' in the first place?
17) Is it possible to navigate to root directory in 'Finder'? If so, it's got me stumped.
18) Why will it not auto update Stuff-It Expander in the OSX updates thing? How come when Stuff-It runs, it detectes there's an update, I click 'Not now', and it crashes? And this was trying to extract the update for itself. Prey tell how I'm meant to update it.
19) Give me an option to remove the desktop menu. I don't want a desktop menu at the top. I'm happy with my non-permanent ones. Really, I don't want it.
20) Why can I not drag files onto the CD-RW, or edit one that has some fi
It is? And secondly, that opinion is not ludicrous. In fact it's so un-ludicrous that the general secretary of the United Nations happened to agree. So your use of the word patently is, well, patently lacking in clarity at least.
I believe that imprisonment is a far worse punishment than death.
How many times have you died? How can anyone be in a position to make that claim?
You should take a statistics course, as in it you would learn that it is impossible to be 100% confident about anything.
I do take a statistics course but thank you for arguing my point, even so. It is impossible to be 100% certain so in my opinion, the risk of innocent men being executed is still far too high.
Note that this all hinges on acceptance that conception marks the start of life, and thus that abortion is murder. Were this not the case, then there would be no legal grounds to even argue the point, as it would then be a moral issue (and hence, one I'd not legislate against--note that while I am against voluntary euthanasia, I believe it should be legal). However, there are good scientific and areligious reasons to believe that life begins at conception.
Yes, this is where we basically differ. Rather than conception, though, I think it matters largely on when pain is first felt, and remembered -- the latter being important. I'm not going to change your opinion so I'm going to save my fingers.
There is no such thing as an unfertilised embryo.
Do correct me if I'm wrong but surely an unfertilised embryo is an egg (as you point out). In which case, there is such a thing. Unfortunately there is no such thing as an unfertilised egg, since by definition an egg is unfertilised, so it's a tautology.
Research has allowed eggs to evolve as though they were embryonic -- so they can be used for testing -- but without fertilisation. So I think it's pretty fair to call them unfertilised embryos. Although technically eggs, that is what an unfertilised embryo is.
Manta
I suggest you read http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673 ,921411,00.html as someone else points out.
Yes, of course. You can no more give a man a dozen years of his life back than you can give him the rest of his life back. Given that prison is an utterly vile place, it may very well be that it is better to die after a year of it than after forty years of it.
I can't actually believe you can think that. Obviously you can't give someone years of their life back but the step of giving them years of freedom somewhat makes ammends. Even so, taking away someone's life is barely comparable to imprisoning them.
That's why our system has so many safeguards built into it: the presumption of innocence; the rules of evidence; the right to appeal; trial by jury &c.
I feel you're contradicting yourself by saying your system lets a fraction through but you would prefer dozens of guilty to go free. How can you even be willing to accept this tiny fraction? Until there is a foolproof system (which, I suggest will never be the case), it is grossly unfair to accept even the smallest fraction of innocent men being executed.
Why should the innocent child suffer the death penalty for a crime it did not commit?
Why should the child be forced to live a life of cruelty, poverty and misery? I'm not saying children shouldn't be put up for adoption or that abortion should be some common-place thing when mothers can't perfectly support their children. I just don't believe there should be a blanket one rule for all. What is the baby will be born with a permanent, possibly terminal, disability? Is it euthenasia then?
There are a lot of things I believe are or may be immoral: polygamy; drug use; extramarital sex. I also firmly believe that they should be legal. Who decides what is or is not moral? The law is a powerful weapon, and should only be used when one man harms another: it should punish rape, theft, murder, fraud and not a whole lot else. I don't want you telling me that I cannot live according to the precepts of my religion; nor do I want to tell you that you cannot live according to the precepts of your philosophy.
I take your point that laws should not be determined by morals.
Of course not--I never said I would be, or that anyone should be. But I would also be quite annoyed if I lost twenty years of my life, or if I died an innocent in prison. In any case, I would fight for my innocence as strongly as possible, even after every avenue was exhausted. But a guilty man would do the same, and society can hardly be expected to exempt from punishment everyone who might be innocent--because every guilty man might be innocent.
I expect, if it were possible to decide, you would be less annoyed at being imprisoned before being exonerated and cleared and set free than at being killed and later found to be innocent and cleared. Society can be expected to give everyone an indefinite chance to be exonerated, which execution prevents.
I'm afraid that you have an erroneous idea of what a stem cell is. A stem cell is taken from an embryo (every embryo is fertilised: were it not, it be a seperate egg and sperm), which is a human being with a genetic makeup independent of either parent (well, except for clones...). Experimenting with and killing sperm or eggs must not be illegal (it may be immoral or not, but that is irrelevant); experimenting with or killing human beings must be.
Actually, there are devised techniques to create stemm and somatic cells from unfertilized embryos. But, even if this were not the case, this comes down to our different views on abortion, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Manta
Criminal law is a matter of national, not international, interest. The US may deal with their citizens as the US would like; so too for any other nation.
According to the Geneva convention, anyone taken captive during a war should be treated as a POW, with no exceptions. The US did not comply as many of the prisoners in Guantanamo bay were captured during the "War on terror" in Afghanistan.
The same may be said of someone who spends his life--or even a few years--in jail, as well. Our legal system does its absolute best to ensure that those who are convicted are actually guilty. Having done the most possible to free the innocent, it then metes out punishment as appropriate to the crime. Yes, there are mistakes, but they are few and far between. One can no more give a man back a lost year of his life than give him back his life--why is it any better to imprison him than kill him?
Why is it better to imprison someone than kill them? Is that really a serious question? How many people do you know who are in prison who can appeal? How many dead people do you see appealing?
I would rather see 10 guilty people set free than 1 innocent man put to death. I know I will not be one of the guilty 10 set free, but I do know I could be the 1 innocent. That is my problem with the death penalty.
Not that I want to see someone put in prison but the point is there is no means to fix an innocent mean put to death, but there are ways to free an innocent man from imprisonment.
Abortion is murder: it is the killing of another human being. Your argument is akin to `theft: it's all well and good to say no to theft, but when it's your stomach that empty, it's different.' Guess what--it's not. Murder is rightly illegal; abortion is murder; therefor abortion is rightly illegal.
OK, you're a 13 year old girl from a broken home, with abusive parents, who gets assaulted, beaten up, and raped. You fall pregnant. Let's look at your choices. You can have the child. You can have the child and put it up for adoption. You can have an abortion. As a human being I would not like to see any life brought in to this world where it has no chance of receiving the quality of life it deserves. If you think so, that's tantamount to saying "Let's raise a kid inhumanely!". Murder is not as black and white as you make out -- I'd consider abortion to more akin to euthenasia -- sparing someone from an unnecessary low quality of life.
Although I accept that it may not be legally right, or right in any non-moral way, my point is that it's not fair for someone to judge the situation without having been in it. I'm sure if it was your daughter, or you, you wouldn't feel that it was illegal -- or at least that it should be illegal.
Whether abortion is moral or not is NOT immaterial to whether or not it should be legal. Legality is not independent of morals. This isn't from a religious point of view but just from common sense. Legality does not supercede any form of sensible logic, and if something is not moral, it should not be legal.
Convenience doesn't make it any more right. That a man might testify against me in court gives me no right to kill him. That his money may pay for my hospital bills gives me no right to steal from him.
It's got nothing to do with convenience. It's about narrow mindedness. It's not convenient that you see how other's feel when you're forced to look at the same problem through their eyes, it's open mindedness and apathy. I'll try to make my point more clear for you:
If you were put in the situation that one of those people find themselves in (as I tried to give examples of), and you would be perfectly happy with what they would have to face/put up with, then that is fine. If this is not the case, then there is no justification for you supporting it.
If you were innocent of a murder crime and were going to be put to your death, are you se
Well, I concur it is not complete on-topic but I am talking about people being detained for terrorism acts, which the topic talks about. I also talk about allowing authorities to hold him indefinitely without charging him with a crime, which is in the topic.
Manta
[Note, this is more of a general rant rather than specifically about Mike Hawash but my point still stands.]
It's disgusting how America and Great Britain can be allowed to go against so many international conventions and strip people of any rights.
There are specific conventions on how to treat suspected criminals, or terrorists, which should be adhered to. Rather than follow conventions, America decided to put people suspected of terrorism in a deliberate state of limbo where they can do anything they want.
These people are not given any legal representation, they do not even need to be accused of any crime (and given than some were released without charge it's probably fair to say not all are guilty of any crime at all), there are no standards for their conditions, they do not need to be treated humanely, they do not need to be allowed visitation from independent organisations (such as Amnesty, Red Cross, etc) and they do not have to be put to trial. They can be held in this state of limbo for as long as they administration want them to be.
For a country (or countries if you include Great Britain - but they contravene human rights to a far lesser extent, and not as written above) that prides itself on its freedom of speech and human rights, it's disgusting that they treat anyone in this way. And it's even more disgusting that they are one of the premier countries to point out international breaches by other countries - particularly when it favours the situation they're in.
My view on the problem with American society is that although everyone pretends to be friendly and respectful of each other and their views, it's very much each person for themself. People don't think that they'll ever be in a situation when they'll need help, so don't support actions to benefit those who do.
For example, the death penalty. It's all very well saying "Fry them!" or whatever, but when you're accused and found guilty of a crime you didn't commit, or you get found guilty because you're black, poor and can't afford proper legal representation, it's a whole new story. Abortions: it's all well and good to say no to abortions but when it's your daughter, your sister or you who's pregnant and shouldn'tt to give birth for whatever reason, it's different. When your family member/friend is dying from Parkinson's or some other degenerate disease, you'll be wishing the government would allow stem cell research, or at least sooner. I've forgotten who it was but when one president got some degenerative disease which could be potentially eradicated with enough research into stem cells (which don't use any fertilised eggs), although he had been staunchly against the research his whole life, the first thing the first lady did was speak directly to President Bush to try get it allowed.
The shear selfishness - while not always apparent/transparent - of many American's is shocking. What if you were accused of some terrorist charge which you didn't commit? Put away on an island with no contact to anyone - even a lawyer, for a simple misunderstanding.
"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
Manta
(Karma bonus abused!)
Sure, I love Knoppix and preach about it no end but having just got my shiney new Powerbook, is it not possible to make a PPC port?
:)
;-)
I know it would be necessary to recompile apps and use yaboot, but surely someone would be dedicated enough to do this for me?
Emphasis on "for me", not "by me"
A user id/Specialised ID code/Lame couple of passwords?!!?!
I disagree.
:) Also, a lot of clan channels very rarely talk about clan stuff, or even gaming stuff. In fact, we talk about clan specific so rarely in #tjd, we often stray into geeky/technical discussions. My most recent favourite culminated in deciding that Ian Flemming was secretly a coder:
:)
There are a lot of non-specific clan channels that have friendly banter. Banter, anyway
#tjd sad topic for the day. =/ Today we have been proving that Ian Fleming was a geek:
Daemons are Forever
The World is Not Enum
function Tomorrow()
{
return 1;
die("I'm dead");
}
while (!true) say("never again");
07016534671571
die("another day");
$ ps aux | grep daylights
jil01 5980 0.0 0.4 1544 580 pts/2 S 13:40 0:00 daylights
(!enough)?The World:;
for (i=1;i=2; i++) YouOnlyLive();
Select * FROM Russia WITH love;
You get the idea!
Well, if there was no point, why would the (arguably) largest IRC network have a very strict anti-warez rules? That's Quakenet, by the way - and yes, it is my choice of IRC network.
Clearly there is a demand for a warez-free (OK, no specific file transfer channel) network. And yes, I've just continued the trend and said "Don't worry, the IRC network I use rocks, even if Dalnet sucks!" ;)
At least you managed to get a girlfriend on IRC :)
Tracking a package to Santa
South Haven photojournalist David McCreery uses Federal Express a lot and is fascinated with the tracking feature on the FedEx Web site (www.federalexpress.com) that lets you watch as your package makes its way to its destination.
"I send FedEx packages every few weeks," he says. "Once, I sent a package to Bowling Green and watched it leave Michigan via Flint for Memphis, come back to Flint and then drive to Ohio."
So, this being the holiday season, he decided to FedEx a letter to Santa, wondering: "How far would a package to the North Pole go? How would it get there? Where would it end up? Who would sign for it?"
You can follow the progress of his letter on his personal Web site (www.davidm.net), where he posted his letter and the FedEx tracking number.
Read the results, linked from here, over here.