A few-weeks-old embryo will develop without impediment into a sentient being. Cell lines will never become sentient. They are life, but not human or even animal life. Ending them is no worse than pulling weeds from your flower bed.
I worked for a year in the underfunded media dept of a private university. We had a duplicator/printer that had the modified guts of an HP inkjet. One day we peeled the label off an ink cart to find that it was just standard HP with a new label and some sort of RFID. It cost $80 per standard black cartridge.
We tried just peeling the tag off and sticking it to another cart, but it was made in such a way that removing the tag destroyed it.
Solution? I handed it to a student worker with a file and an exacto knife and told him he could do that instead of taking calls for the next two hours. He came back with inked-up hands, and the intact tag stuck to the perfectly cut and filed piece of plastic it was attached to. We stuck the thing onto the side of the print head assembly and never bought the overpriced no-value-added ink again.
I pretty much agree. I can't figure out why you'd get so bent out of shape about being asked your race on a form unless it's some misguided application of a politically correct agenda... or you're for some reason embarrassed by your race, in which case you've got other problems. Just asking a person's race is not racist, anymore than asking a person what country they're from is xenophobic. (And I'm the kind of person that thinks you don't need to be conscious of being a racist to be a racist. But as Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Not every question about race carries implied racism behind it.) The problem with asking about race is that there is no other possible motive for the question other than to judge how social programs might be directed at one racial group over another. My thinking is that such preferential treatment, good or bad, working against minorities or majorities, is racism. There is no compelling reason for the government to know or care.
I also agree that it's useful knowledge for the government to know the demographic makeup of its citizens. Immigration patterns, for example. If you know that 1 million Chinese passed through the port of New York between 2000 and 2010, and 400,000 of them still live in New York while 600,000 of them live elsewhere on the east coast, then that can tell you what sorts of immigration patterns you might see in the near future. And that will help aid in city planning. What exactly would that accomplish that a simple headcount could not? More likely, such information would aid in either catering specifically to Chinese interests, or as a way of "identifying the problem of the Chinese invasion among us!" Both, as far as I'm aware, are racially-motivated.
And this is not kept secret; everyone has access to census info, and it's probably actually *more* useful for others outside the government to have this info. Then let them pay for it. Don't force me to do someone's marketing research at gunpoint through taxes.
Regardless, on the US forms, while it doesn't seem to be specified anywhere, I don't think it's strictly required that you answer anything other than your name and address. I could be wrong on that, but the Constitution simply says that every person must be counted; demographics aren't mentioned anywhere. For once, you're correct. The mandate is limited only to a headcount. They'll try to bug you about the rest, but when you tell them to pound sand because they've got all the information you're required to give them, they'll leave you alone.
My apologies. The first part of my post was a correction, that the animal was killed with handguns in an unplanned shooting rather than with a rifle "at 400 yards away". (Which is highly impractical in addition to untrue. Why did you present it as fact?)
The second part was a response to the "eh, what's a few humans?" attitude that was being expressed in other posts. It was not directed at you, and if you'd taken some time to think about it you could have simply asked for clarification instead of calling me a granola-munching hippie.
(Pertinent information: I'm a full-time church employee, carry a handgun, and eat more meat than I should. Hardly a tree-hugger. I do enjoy granola on occasion, however.)
Actually, in this case it was SF police officers with.40 sidearms. I imagine that they were able to win only because there were so many rounds expended, as handgun rounds are hardly adequate for this sort of animal.
In any case, most folks believe that human life is more important than animal life, so when a police officer arrives to find a "rare" tiger mauling a "common" human, you can't be surprised when he opts to kill kill the freaking cat. The suggestion that the lives of a few humans should be willfully sacrificed to preserve the life of an animal flies against our built-in desire to preserve our race, so don't expect to be popular when you make it.
If you cannot differentiate between someone their own trademark to profit and an unauthorized third-party using that trademark to profit without the permission of the holder, then you're not much of a lawyer.
But you *do* appear to have something against the "christianist agenda". Maybe you were claiming to be an attorney to make yourself look less like an intolerant hypocrite?
'Most in search of malware for offensive use know the good stuff -- it ain't distributed through public Web... It's distributed through dark Web servers, peer-to-peer networks, IRC channels, torrents and the like. Google's efforts will not affect how skilled hackers get access to malware.'
I imagine the idea is that people who are making (ahem) innocent searches will not be so prone to stumble across a malicious page with the latest unpatched IE/Firefox/Whatever exploit.
HTML doesn't have commands. HTML has tags. HTTP has commands.
You big baby.:)
And one issue you miss is that most of these highly intelligent people aren't just ignorant because nobody has told them: They are ignorant because either they think that their time is too important to waste on learning mechanics which they could delegate, or they think that their elevated position allows them the luxury of passing menial tech tasks off to people that they pay to do unpleasant things.
In both cases they are incorrect, and their productivity suffers, but it is what it is.
They do. It's under subscription information. All you have to do is remove the automatic payment and ta-da, your account goes inactive at the end of the billing cycle.
Maybe they guessed that it was some sort of test or experiment, so they avoided political fallout later on by just complying even though it was nonsensical?
Soooo... You take two numbers that you made up on the spot, multiplied them together, and used the result to draw a conclusion that runs counter to what the people in company with a vested interest in success obviously think is best for its bottom line?
Which is why insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan got steamrolled by US troops, where completely annihilated, and quickly ceased to be a fighting force.
(Sarcasm off)
I'm not saying that a citizen militia can outright stomp an organized military force, but it makes the prospect of ticking off the people unpleasant enough that it's not tried.
But there's another important reason for the right to bear arms: The psychological effect of an arms on a populace. It's been said that the rifle is the difference between a subject and a citizen, and I think there's some truth to that. The idea is that having the means to defend one's family and property is the first step toward self-determination. When an entire nation is composed largely of those types of folks, out of whom the manpower for the military is drawn, you then have a military that is principled, at least regarding orders to oppress their own people.
President and Congress: Military, use force to quash the [right-wing|left-wing|atheist|Christian|Islamic|White|Black|Whatever] protests.
You're absolutely right, of course. The differences are more significant than my one point and my statement is a vast oversimplification.
But I ask: Would the terror being inflicted on the people of Burma have even been considered by their leaders if the populace had easy access to firearms?
What if the monks running down the street in protest were flanked by citizens with rifles? A bloodbath, of course. But the outcome would be better than this and in the end there would be far less killing. It might not have even started.
Sounds like a very good reason for we (as a people, as a nation) in the US to continue to support the right to bear arms.
The difference between Burma and the US is not the capacity of each country's leadership for evil, but the capability of its people to fight back when the line is crossed.
Slashdot Mirror
A few-weeks-old embryo will develop without impediment into a sentient being. Cell lines will never become sentient. They are life, but not human or even animal life. Ending them is no worse than pulling weeds from your flower bed.
I worked for a year in the underfunded media dept of a private university. We had a duplicator/printer that had the modified guts of an HP inkjet. One day we peeled the label off an ink cart to find that it was just standard HP with a new label and some sort of RFID. It cost $80 per standard black cartridge.
We tried just peeling the tag off and sticking it to another cart, but it was made in such a way that removing the tag destroyed it.
Solution? I handed it to a student worker with a file and an exacto knife and told him he could do that instead of taking calls for the next two hours. He came back with inked-up hands, and the intact tag stuck to the perfectly cut and filed piece of plastic it was attached to. We stuck the thing onto the side of the print head assembly and never bought the overpriced no-value-added ink again.
Of course, HP ink is still a rip-off...
I take offense to that!
My apologies. The first part of my post was a correction, that the animal was killed with handguns in an unplanned shooting rather than with a rifle "at 400 yards away". (Which is highly impractical in addition to untrue. Why did you present it as fact?)
The second part was a response to the "eh, what's a few humans?" attitude that was being expressed in other posts. It was not directed at you, and if you'd taken some time to think about it you could have simply asked for clarification instead of calling me a granola-munching hippie.
(Pertinent information: I'm a full-time church employee, carry a handgun, and eat more meat than I should. Hardly a tree-hugger. I do enjoy granola on occasion, however.)
Either you completely misread my statement, or you were replying to the parent of my post.
Actually, in this case it was SF police officers with .40 sidearms. I imagine that they were able to win only because there were so many rounds expended, as handgun rounds are hardly adequate for this sort of animal.
In any case, most folks believe that human life is more important than animal life, so when a police officer arrives to find a "rare" tiger mauling a "common" human, you can't be surprised when he opts to kill kill the freaking cat. The suggestion that the lives of a few humans should be willfully sacrificed to preserve the life of an animal flies against our built-in desire to preserve our race, so don't expect to be popular when you make it.
"If he's got the personal charisma, he can pick up where Lance Armstrong has (arguably) left off."
Except that the lack of a testicle (as Robin Williams says, aerodynamic advantage!) never disqualified Armstrong for anything.
That really depends on how much sun we're talking about, doesn't it?
I encourage you to provide evidence that I am misrepresenting myself in some way.
Whereas an individual claiming to be a lawyer who demonstrates his lack of knowledge about all things legal is certainly questionable.
If you cannot differentiate between someone their own trademark to profit and an unauthorized third-party using that trademark to profit without the permission of the holder, then you're not much of a lawyer.
But you *do* appear to have something against the "christianist agenda". Maybe you were claiming to be an attorney to make yourself look less like an intolerant hypocrite?
'Most in search of malware for offensive use know the good stuff -- it ain't distributed through public Web ... It's distributed through dark Web servers, peer-to-peer networks, IRC channels, torrents and the like. Google's efforts will not affect how skilled hackers get access to malware.'
I imagine the idea is that people who are making (ahem) innocent searches will not be so prone to stumble across a malicious page with the latest unpatched IE/Firefox/Whatever exploit.
Actually, if you burn a $20 bill, everyone but you wins.
The removal of that cash from the economy increases the buying power of all the other dollars.
"All these things have killed far more people than terrorists and they don't get brought up at every *FUCKING* opportunity."
So it doesn't bother you, because such opportunities rarely present themselves. Right?
HTML doesn't have commands. HTML has tags. HTTP has commands.
:)
You big baby.
And one issue you miss is that most of these highly intelligent people aren't just ignorant because nobody has told them: They are ignorant because either they think that their time is too important to waste on learning mechanics which they could delegate, or they think that their elevated position allows them the luxury of passing menial tech tasks off to people that they pay to do unpleasant things.
In both cases they are incorrect, and their productivity suffers, but it is what it is.
...brains?
They do. It's under subscription information. All you have to do is remove the automatic payment and ta-da, your account goes inactive at the end of the billing cycle.
Maybe they guessed that it was some sort of test or experiment, so they avoided political fallout later on by just complying even though it was nonsensical?
Soooo... You take two numbers that you made up on the spot, multiplied them together, and used the result to draw a conclusion that runs counter to what the people in company with a vested interest in success obviously think is best for its bottom line?
(Score: -1, missing the joke)
Which is why insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan got steamrolled by US troops, where completely annihilated, and quickly ceased to be a fighting force.
(Sarcasm off)
I'm not saying that a citizen militia can outright stomp an organized military force, but it makes the prospect of ticking off the people unpleasant enough that it's not tried.
But there's another important reason for the right to bear arms: The psychological effect of an arms on a populace. It's been said that the rifle is the difference between a subject and a citizen, and I think there's some truth to that. The idea is that having the means to defend one's family and property is the first step toward self-determination. When an entire nation is composed largely of those types of folks, out of whom the manpower for the military is drawn, you then have a military that is principled, at least regarding orders to oppress their own people.
President and Congress: Military, use force to quash the [right-wing|left-wing|atheist|Christian|Islamic|White|Black|Whatever] protests.
Military, from the bottom up: Screw you!
You're absolutely right, of course. The differences are more significant than my one point and my statement is a vast oversimplification.
But I ask: Would the terror being inflicted on the people of Burma have even been considered by their leaders if the populace had easy access to firearms?
What if the monks running down the street in protest were flanked by citizens with rifles? A bloodbath, of course. But the outcome would be better than this and in the end there would be far less killing. It might not have even started.
Sounds like a very good reason for we (as a people, as a nation) in the US to continue to support the right to bear arms.
The difference between Burma and the US is not the capacity of each country's leadership for evil, but the capability of its people to fight back when the line is crossed.
MALE FBI agents!
The DOS concerns are absolutely valid, but the rest of the article is absolute garbage.
Congratulations to the author for revealing to us that equipment operating on an unencrypted network is vulnerable to interception or takeover.