Are you kidding? It was the Rush types that initially drove me away from the conservative side. Rush and pals contantly shout down any disagreements (even from there own co-hosts!) insult their oposition and call them names. I can't stand that sort of thing, even when I agree with the view-point.
Basically I think its better to be wrong than be an asshole.
Here's an example of a reasonable conservative statement: "While I understand that liberals believe it is important to take care of the unfortunate, overall I believe this encourages lazy, unscupulous people to take advantage of society."
Now this is how Rush et al would say the same thing (not an actual quote): "Those STUPID Lie-beral Demon-crats want to STEAL my tax dollars to give it to some welfare queen with twenty kids so she can buy crack?!? Only a complete MORON would think that's a good idea! But then, I already said they were Democrats..."
The former is a debatable point, the latter just makes me want to punch the speaker in the face. I once found a liberal show that was bashing Republicans in a similar maner. I turned it off just as quickly.
Gah, as someone who is bitterly pissed off about how boring "adult" life is, I've gotta call BS on this. You can think of yourself as young all you want, but the opportunities to have fun evaporate completely after college.
In college, you were constantly exposed to new people in your various classes that were studying a wide range of topics. In adult life, you only see the same coworkers every day for years, and they all do the exact same type of work as you. Outside of class, I would frequently hang out at the library or the university union or the many lawns on campus and encounter interesting new people, old classemates, etc. In adult life, there are no such hangout places; just work, home, and shopping places.
And in college, I frequently walked the halls and saw posters/fliers/notices of upcoming special events, club meetings, things to do and whatnot. In adult life there is no hallway between classrooms and the halls at work have only work-related notices. There is no ballroom dance club to check out, no ski club to join, no obscure cultural festival happening this weekend. The closest to anything like that are the kids' summer activities and the senior center's classes that the local city's newsletter advertises.
And having all those activities achieved a sort of critical mass of friends that provide even more opportunities as you can meet friends of friends of friends, etc. In adult life, I see the same dozen coworkers and never anyone else.
I am a very frequent flyer (2-3 trips per month). Whenever I purchace same-day, one-way tickets, I always get the SSSS printed my ticket. When I purchase round trip tickets with advance notice, I rarely get the SSSS. The TSA sometimes ignores the SSSS and just lets you though normally, I've never had them screen me without the SSSS.
Every time I do get the extra screening, the TSA always gives the same spiel:
"You have been selected by your airline for additional screening...."
"Selected by your airline" not "randomly selected". No claims of randomness about it.
As a funny aside, a few weeks ago I was at my local airport (Ontario International [which is in California not Canada]) about to go through the metal detector. I standing at "the line" fumbling to get my bording pass back out since I know you have to hand it to the TSA agent as you go through. Before I got the ticket out, TSA agent waved me through and called me by name! I didn't know her, I wasn't wearing a name badge, my ticket with my name wasn't out yet, and Ontario California is not exactly a small town airport. Aparently I fly so much that some of the TSA agents recognize me!
He is being condesending. I do currently own a cell phone and it is much like you described. It has a small black & white screen (not grayscale, the lcd is either on or off) and it only kind of sort of connects to the internet (a handfull of special text-only news and sports pages with no links, since there's no way to click on them).
My phone is only 2.5 years old and I see people carrying the same model phone as me (a Motorola i530) all the time, it's very common. I'm not even sure how you would get arbitrary code onto the phone since it doesn't have bluetooth, doesn't meaningfully go online, and didn't come with a cable to attach to a computer (maybe you can buy such a cable?).
I guess maybe the fancy camera-and-color-screen-having phones can run programs, but then I was surprised to learn that my friend's phone actually has a mouse pointer that you can move around and click stuff with. Regular no-camera-or-color-screen type phones that most people have are not like that at all.
I was surprised to learn that my parents recently put a WiFi in their home without any help or advice from me (the first one they ever owned). Apparently buying and installing a WiFi router doesn't even warrent calling your geeky son to learn what to look for/avoid. Its just something non-geeks go out and buy now.
It's been that way since 1952 when 35 USC 103 was written. Slashdot and the media think that "obvious" in 35 USC 103 means "clever" or "complicated," neither Congress nor the judicial system EVER had that intention.
Then why do they use those words? I know legaleese is often wierd but this is ridiculous! If they meant "unoriginal" why not say so? Oh yeah, they did; they covered originality in another section.
It's pretty obvious from the language about "a person having ordinary skill in the art" that the law does mean that if you walk up to an average [coder/bricklayer/mechanic/etc whatever the relevant profession is] and say "I want to accomplish X, how can you do it?" and this average craftsman/professional/whatever says "I would do W, Y, and Z" then the "invention" is obvious and not patentable.
The problem is that that requires sujective thought and judgement, which is too much work and opens up the possibility of someone suing the patent office if one of the examiners subjectively judges something to be "obvious" and the applicant manages to convince a judge/jury that it wasn't. So rather than do the right thing and continue to make good subjective judgements (and occationally have a court disagree) they decided "ah fuck it, we'll just approve everything unless it can be objectively shown to have prior art."
Before the D-Pad, people used joysticks, and had no idea how much they hated them until the D-Pad.
When the D-Pad came out, I realized how much I hated the D-Pad. We used the "Zinger" joystick for a while to control the original Nintendo, and after that..well I haven't owned a console since then. And don't get me started on those analog thumb sticks. I have no idea how anyone manages to control anything with those.
Please, PLEASE, oh game console makers, please learn that human thumbs suck at coordinated movement! Bring back our joysticks!
Except that if Christianity is true, then the ultimate reality is horifying.
If Christianity is true, then the possibility of eternal life is real
And you get the choice of burning in hell for all eternity, or eternally sucking up to big daddy so you can live in his house for ever. I'm not sure which is worse, hell sounds physically painful, and heaven sound spirtually painful (think back to living as a child in your parents house and remember how much it made you wish you were dead, and that's just for 18 years and parents aren't all-powerful).
doing something good is meaningful beyond just how it makes you feel
Except that good and evil go from being absolute fundimentals of life, to becoming arbitrary and changable definitions based on big daddy's whim. In the Chistian view God can make stoning gays to death or human slavery "good" by decree (and according to the OT they were, at least back then). That makes good and evil meaningless.
The thing Christians don't understand is that I didn't reject Christianity because I felt I knew God didn't exist, I rejected it because I hope he doesn't exist. What a horrible world that would be.
Tried it, didn't find any explicit definitions of "pension", other than at dictionary.com, which was very vauge.
It seems (as best I can tell), that my guess was right anyway, the UK sites all talk about privite pension plans with annuities, but they seem to assume you already know what it means. The U.S. sites talk about what I mentioned, employer run programs.
Its easy enough to figure out from the context, it just sounds really wierd to talk about switching pension providers. In the U.S. that would mean switching to a new employer for 20 years or so.
Could somebody Brittish convert this to Americanese for me?
Here in the U.S., "pension" refers to an employer controlled retirement fund. The employer decides how much employees contribute, what to invest the money in, and how much is paid out to retirees (generally based on years of service with the company). They are very rare, few companies offer them, and fewer employees stay with the same company long enough to get any benefits.
This sounds more like what we call an IRA, where the individual goes out and finds an investment company and puts however much money they like in whatever funds they like and withdraws whatever they like when they retire (there are tax penalties if you withdraw it early).
The author has a pretty irritating style overall, but he really set my off with this quote:
"No student should be allowed to bring a calculator into a math class. Ever."
Yeah, cause when I was learning to do Fourier transforms in college, I really robbed myself by not doing the arithmatic bits by hand. I can see that you shouldn't use a basic calculator while learning arithmatic (and similarly, you shouldn't use the integration features of you calculator when learning integration) but they already spend an absurdly long time teaching arithmatic anyway. Ooohhh, you need to carry the 2! Class, lets spend several weeks mastering this increadibly difficult concept that a retarded monkey could master in 15 minutes!
Bah, he just really hit a nerve with me there. I got turned off to math in the fourth grade (where you spend the entire year learning the oh so complex mysteries of multiplication) and wasted my prime learning years as a kid thinking math was boring, stupid busywork with limited usefulness. Then as an adult I had to struggle trying to catchup in college where useful, interesting math was finally taught at a fast pace.
But I don't understand the people who truly don't see what's immoral about, for example, running Mac OS X in a way that Apple expressly asks you not to.
What on earth is immoral about that. The whole concept of a sale is that the seller is transfering their right to dictate the use of the goods to the buyer.
Its one thing if the transaction is clearly not a sale (say, a rental, or a signed licensing agreement) but if I walk into a standard retail store, hand over money, and walk out with a box then I feel morally that I own that item and the previous owner has no moral rights whatsoever, since the whole concept of a sale is I get all the moral rights to an item in exchange for money.
If Apple or any other manufacturer lets me walk into a normal retail store and hand over my money in what would appear to a reasonable person to be sale but doesn't transfer all the moral rights to me, then they are committing fraud by not giving me what I thought I was paying for.
If today everyone spontaneously believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that eating spaghetti was blasphemy.
Heretic! The Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster teaches that eating spaghetti (and other pasta) is holy communion and should be done regularly. Sort of like the Chritians are supposed to consume the body and blood of Jesus once a week.
all would agree that legally you have gotten a license to play the music privately
No, I bought a CD. Copywrite law prohibits copying, public performance, etc. There is no licencing involved in buying a CD. You are automatically alowed to do anything not prohibited by law with a CD you bought.
It seriously pisses me off when idiots like you parot the industry line that you licence content when you buy a CD. If morons like you keep repeating that, then someday it will become the "normal, reasonable person's expectation" and the courts will follow it, and that would suck badly.
Everyone repeat after me "I bought a CD. I bought a CD....." Lets all do our part to insure that we retain the ability to buy stuff, ok?
Blogging Writing stuff and displaying it in reverse chronological order
Agghh! But I hate it when people put stuff in reverse cronological order. I'm straying off topic here, but I certainly don't want blogging to be defined as being displayed wrong. The only correct order of things is "nested, oldest first"!
The ability of congress to make a law regulating something does not need to
be specifically enumerated in the constitution.
Yes it does. There is a big section in the constitution that lists all of the subjects that congress is allowed to pass laws about. This is what people are talking about when they refer to "the copyright clause" or "the interstate commerce clause", ect. The interstate commerce clause seems to be lawmakers' favorite justification for laws, they have a lot of practice stretching the logic of activities to show that they somehow vaguely impact interstate commerce.
Indeed, I can see both sides of the argument. Everyone else (especially at the level of "educated professional") lives at the level of being expected to be personally responsible for the consequences of their actions. Notice that even military personal (sworn to defend their nation) are expected to disobey unlawful orders, even if it means losing the battle (say, orders to hide in a church or hospital).
Lawyers have a different standard, since no-one other than the jury (or judge) is supposed to be doing any judging. This has the advantage that an innocent person with a hard to believe alibi will still get good representation and the disadvantage that it gives lawyers a licence to knowingly defend reprehensible people to rake in the cash.
Lawyers are hired to win cases. Lawyers frequently champion causes they don't personally support. It's their job to win their clients' cases. The job of a lawyer is not to be impartial or fair minded. You can't fault her for doing her job.
Yes we can fault her for doing her job. It is this very attitude that lawyers should put their personal judgement aside for anyone with enough cash that many people find abborant.
I remember when I first started college, I got a book called "Engineers and Thier Profession" for my introduction to EE class. Towards the back there was a section about professional ethics that detailed many real-life "whistleblower" type incidents where engineers choose either to cover up or expose potentially dangerous defects in their companies products. The general conclusion of the book, and the attitude of most engineers I've talked with about professional ethics, is that as educated professionals, engineers had not only the right but the duty to put the greater good of humanity above the good of thier employer.
The lawyers do have an arguable defence for their position, namely that everyone deserves solid legal representation, and refusing to serve your client would be like a doctor refusing to treat someone that they personally decide doesn't deserve to live. But it is very hard for many of us in other profressions to accept that this means lawyers have not only the right, but the duty to completely suspend all personal judgement and act completely amorally.
What the heck are you talking about? I signed employment contracts with every employer I've ever worked for, from McDonalds to General Electric.
Are you using some strict terminology about what constitutes an "enployement contract" beyond the papers you have to sign on the first day of work? Again, not in the U.S. In 49 of the 50 states (Montana being the exception), employment is "at will" and generally without contract.
What does "at will" employment have to do with contracts? My employment is "at will", I know this because it says so in my contract!
Hey how did you immigrate to HK? I would dearly love to live there, but it didn't seem like it would be possible to immigrate and even if I did, I doubt I could find work there.
You yourself state that it's against the law to hire illegal aliens. So businesses don't knowingly do that. Illegal aliens usually use fraudulent SSN's and other forged documents to get work. So the taxes, social security, etc generally are still collected.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding? It was the Rush types that initially drove me away from the conservative side. Rush and pals contantly shout down any disagreements (even from there own co-hosts!) insult their oposition and call them names. I can't stand that sort of thing, even when I agree with the view-point.
Basically I think its better to be wrong than be an asshole.
Here's an example of a reasonable conservative statement:
"While I understand that liberals believe it is important to take care of the unfortunate, overall I believe this encourages lazy, unscupulous people to take advantage of society."
Now this is how Rush et al would say the same thing (not an actual quote):
"Those STUPID Lie-beral Demon-crats want to STEAL my tax dollars to give it to some welfare queen with twenty kids so she can buy crack?!? Only a complete MORON would think that's a good idea! But then, I already said they were Democrats..."
The former is a debatable point, the latter just makes me want to punch the speaker in the face. I once found a liberal show that was bashing Republicans in a similar maner. I turned it off just as quickly.
Gah, as someone who is bitterly pissed off about how boring "adult" life is, I've gotta call BS on this. You can think of yourself as young all you want, but the opportunities to have fun evaporate completely after college.
In college, you were constantly exposed to new people in your various classes that were studying a wide range of topics. In adult life, you only see the same coworkers every day for years, and they all do the exact same type of work as you. Outside of class, I would frequently hang out at the library or the university union or the many lawns on campus and encounter interesting new people, old classemates, etc. In adult life, there are no such hangout places; just work, home, and shopping places.
And in college, I frequently walked the halls and saw posters/fliers/notices of upcoming special events, club meetings, things to do and whatnot. In adult life there is no hallway between classrooms and the halls at work have only work-related notices. There is no ballroom dance club to check out, no ski club to join, no obscure cultural festival happening this weekend. The closest to anything like that are the kids' summer activities and the senior center's classes that the local city's newsletter advertises.
And having all those activities achieved a sort of critical mass of friends that provide even more opportunities as you can meet friends of friends of friends, etc. In adult life, I see the same dozen coworkers and never anyone else.
I am a very frequent flyer (2-3 trips per month). Whenever I purchace same-day, one-way tickets, I always get the SSSS printed my ticket. When I purchase round trip tickets with advance notice, I rarely get the SSSS. The TSA sometimes ignores the SSSS and just lets you though normally, I've never had them screen me without the SSSS.
Every time I do get the extra screening, the TSA always gives the same spiel: "You have been selected by your airline for additional screening...."
"Selected by your airline" not "randomly selected". No claims of randomness about it.
As a funny aside, a few weeks ago I was at my local airport (Ontario International [which is in California not Canada]) about to go through the metal detector. I standing at "the line" fumbling to get my bording pass back out since I know you have to hand it to the TSA agent as you go through. Before I got the ticket out, TSA agent waved me through and called me by name! I didn't know her, I wasn't wearing a name badge, my ticket with my name wasn't out yet, and Ontario California is not exactly a small town airport. Aparently I fly so much that some of the TSA agents recognize me!
He is being condesending. I do currently own a cell phone and it is much like you described. It has a small black & white screen (not grayscale, the lcd is either on or off) and it only kind of sort of connects to the internet (a handfull of special text-only news and sports pages with no links, since there's no way to click on them).
My phone is only 2.5 years old and I see people carrying the same model phone as me (a Motorola i530) all the time, it's very common. I'm not even sure how you would get arbitrary code onto the phone since it doesn't have bluetooth, doesn't meaningfully go online, and didn't come with a cable to attach to a computer (maybe you can buy such a cable?).
I guess maybe the fancy camera-and-color-screen-having phones can run programs, but then I was surprised to learn that my friend's phone actually has a mouse pointer that you can move around and click stuff with. Regular no-camera-or-color-screen type phones that most people have are not like that at all.
Yeah, the was "A World Out of Time". Loved it!
I was surprised to learn that my parents recently put a WiFi in their home without any help or advice from me (the first one they ever owned). Apparently buying and installing a WiFi router doesn't even warrent calling your geeky son to learn what to look for/avoid. Its just something non-geeks go out and buy now.
Then why do they use those words? I know legaleese is often wierd but this is ridiculous! If they meant "unoriginal" why not say so? Oh yeah, they did; they covered originality in another section.
It's pretty obvious from the language about "a person having ordinary skill in the art" that the law does mean that if you walk up to an average [coder/bricklayer/mechanic/etc whatever the relevant profession is] and say "I want to accomplish X, how can you do it?" and this average craftsman/professional/whatever says "I would do W, Y, and Z" then the "invention" is obvious and not patentable.
The problem is that that requires sujective thought and judgement, which is too much work and opens up the possibility of someone suing the patent office if one of the examiners subjectively judges something to be "obvious" and the applicant manages to convince a judge/jury that it wasn't. So rather than do the right thing and continue to make good subjective judgements (and occationally have a court disagree) they decided "ah fuck it, we'll just approve everything unless it can be objectively shown to have prior art."
When the D-Pad came out, I realized how much I hated the D-Pad. We used the "Zinger" joystick for a while to control the original Nintendo, and after that..well I haven't owned a console since then. And don't get me started on those analog thumb sticks. I have no idea how anyone manages to control anything with those.
Please, PLEASE, oh game console makers, please learn that human thumbs suck at coordinated movement! Bring back our joysticks!
If Christianity is true, then the possibility of eternal life is real
And you get the choice of burning in hell for all eternity, or eternally sucking up to big daddy so you can live in his house for ever. I'm not sure which is worse, hell sounds physically painful, and heaven sound spirtually painful (think back to living as a child in your parents house and remember how much it made you wish you were dead, and that's just for 18 years and parents aren't all-powerful).
doing something good is meaningful beyond just how it makes you feel
Except that good and evil go from being absolute fundimentals of life, to becoming arbitrary and changable definitions based on big daddy's whim. In the Chistian view God can make stoning gays to death or human slavery "good" by decree (and according to the OT they were, at least back then). That makes good and evil meaningless.
The thing Christians don't understand is that I didn't reject Christianity because I felt I knew God didn't exist, I rejected it because I hope he doesn't exist. What a horrible world that would be.
It seems (as best I can tell), that my guess was right anyway, the UK sites all talk about privite pension plans with annuities, but they seem to assume you already know what it means. The U.S. sites talk about what I mentioned, employer run programs.
Its easy enough to figure out from the context, it just sounds really wierd to talk about switching pension providers. In the U.S. that would mean switching to a new employer for 20 years or so.
Here in the U.S., "pension" refers to an employer controlled retirement fund. The employer decides how much employees contribute, what to invest the money in, and how much is paid out to retirees (generally based on years of service with the company). They are very rare, few companies offer them, and fewer employees stay with the same company long enough to get any benefits.
This sounds more like what we call an IRA, where the individual goes out and finds an investment company and puts however much money they like in whatever funds they like and withdraws whatever they like when they retire (there are tax penalties if you withdraw it early).
The author has a pretty irritating style overall, but he really set my off with this quote:
"No student should be allowed to bring a calculator into a math class. Ever."
Yeah, cause when I was learning to do Fourier transforms in college, I really robbed myself by not doing the arithmatic bits by hand. I can see that you shouldn't use a basic calculator while learning arithmatic (and similarly, you shouldn't use the integration features of you calculator when learning integration) but they already spend an absurdly long time teaching arithmatic anyway. Ooohhh, you need to carry the 2! Class, lets spend several weeks mastering this increadibly difficult concept that a retarded monkey could master in 15 minutes!
Bah, he just really hit a nerve with me there. I got turned off to math in the fourth grade (where you spend the entire year learning the oh so complex mysteries of multiplication) and wasted my prime learning years as a kid thinking math was boring, stupid busywork with limited usefulness. Then as an adult I had to struggle trying to catchup in college where useful, interesting math was finally taught at a fast pace.
What on earth is immoral about that. The whole concept of a sale is that the seller is transfering their right to dictate the use of the goods to the buyer.
Its one thing if the transaction is clearly not a sale (say, a rental, or a signed licensing agreement) but if I walk into a standard retail store, hand over money, and walk out with a box then I feel morally that I own that item and the previous owner has no moral rights whatsoever, since the whole concept of a sale is I get all the moral rights to an item in exchange for money.
If Apple or any other manufacturer lets me walk into a normal retail store and hand over my money in what would appear to a reasonable person to be sale but doesn't transfer all the moral rights to me, then they are committing fraud by not giving me what I thought I was paying for.
Heretic! The Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster teaches that eating spaghetti (and other pasta) is holy communion and should be done regularly. Sort of like the Chritians are supposed to consume the body and blood of Jesus once a week.
No, I bought a CD. Copywrite law prohibits copying, public performance, etc. There is no licencing involved in buying a CD. You are automatically alowed to do anything not prohibited by law with a CD you bought.
It seriously pisses me off when idiots like you parot the industry line that you licence content when you buy a CD. If morons like you keep repeating that, then someday it will become the "normal, reasonable person's expectation" and the courts will follow it, and that would suck badly.
Everyone repeat after me "I bought a CD. I bought a CD....." Lets all do our part to insure that we retain the ability to buy stuff, ok?
No, his Analytical engine was the computer. I assume that's what the original poster was talking about.
Agghh! But I hate it when people put stuff in reverse cronological order. I'm straying off topic here, but I certainly don't want blogging to be defined as being displayed wrong. The only correct order of things is "nested, oldest first"!
Yes it does. There is a big section in the constitution that lists all of the subjects that congress is allowed to pass laws about. This is what people are talking about when they refer to "the copyright clause" or "the interstate commerce clause", ect. The interstate commerce clause seems to be lawmakers' favorite justification for laws, they have a lot of practice stretching the logic of activities to show that they somehow vaguely impact interstate commerce.
Indeed, I can see both sides of the argument. Everyone else (especially at the level of "educated professional") lives at the level of being expected to be personally responsible for the consequences of their actions. Notice that even military personal (sworn to defend their nation) are expected to disobey unlawful orders, even if it means losing the battle (say, orders to hide in a church or hospital).
Lawyers have a different standard, since no-one other than the jury (or judge) is supposed to be doing any judging. This has the advantage that an innocent person with a hard to believe alibi will still get good representation and the disadvantage that it gives lawyers a licence to knowingly defend reprehensible people to rake in the cash.
Yes we can fault her for doing her job. It is this very attitude that lawyers should put their personal judgement aside for anyone with enough cash that many people find abborant.
I remember when I first started college, I got a book called "Engineers and Thier Profession" for my introduction to EE class. Towards the back there was a section about professional ethics that detailed many real-life "whistleblower" type incidents where engineers choose either to cover up or expose potentially dangerous defects in their companies products. The general conclusion of the book, and the attitude of most engineers I've talked with about professional ethics, is that as educated professionals, engineers had not only the right but the duty to put the greater good of humanity above the good of thier employer.
The lawyers do have an arguable defence for their position, namely that everyone deserves solid legal representation, and refusing to serve your client would be like a doctor refusing to treat someone that they personally decide doesn't deserve to live. But it is very hard for many of us in other profressions to accept that this means lawyers have not only the right, but the duty to completely suspend all personal judgement and act completely amorally.
What the heck are you talking about? I signed employment contracts with every employer I've ever worked for, from McDonalds to General Electric.
Are you using some strict terminology about what constitutes an "enployement contract" beyond the papers you have to sign on the first day of work?
Again, not in the U.S. In 49 of the 50 states (Montana being the exception), employment is "at will" and generally without contract.
What does "at will" employment have to do with contracts? My employment is "at will", I know this because it says so in my contract!
Hopefully they'll set the garbage on fire, then it will sort of cancel out - mostly.
thc69 made that statement in respose to your (AviLazar's) statement "Also, to consider, while I doubt it will be able to shift Earth's orbit..."
What neither I nor thc69 can figure out is why you (AviLazar) want to change Earth's orbit in the first place.
Hey how did you immigrate to HK? I would dearly love to live there, but it didn't seem like it would be possible to immigrate and even if I did, I doubt I could find work there.
You yourself state that it's against the law to hire illegal aliens. So businesses don't knowingly do that. Illegal aliens usually use fraudulent SSN's and other forged documents to get work. So the taxes, social security, etc generally are still collected.