Too many people seem to think that the money comes from nowhere important, as though the money would just be spent on cocaine otherwise.
In this case, it would probably just be spent on killing Iraqis otherwise. If the Democrats pull out from Iraq as they keep saying, that'll give them a decent pool of cash to play with.
Unless I'm mistaken, Islam considers trinitarian Christians (the majority of them) to be polytheistic - that is, in fact, one of Islam's main doctrinal beefs with Christianity. So assuming that the passage was talking about polytheists, replacing the pronoun with "Christians" might not be so out of line, since in Islamic thinking, "Christian" is a subset of polytheists.
It depends. Our brain's are vastly more complicated than a computer CPU, but they're not designed to do the same thing. There was an interesting explanation of this in a fiction book I read a while back that talked a little about AI.
Basically, it said the human brain was designed for algorithmic complexity, not speed. If you take a brain, and make it ten times faster, it won't be any more intelligent. It'll just take 1/10th of the time to get the same answer as it used to, it still won't be able to solve any more complex problems.
What we do with computer processors is the opposite direction - we just pile up more and more speed. When we want complicated behavior from a CPU, through more speed at it brute-force it. If we want our next-gen parallelized machines to be efficient, we'll have to make changes to our algorithms.
Your argument depends entirely on your assumption that morality is totally relative, a notion which most people with half a brain would disagree with. If someone kills random passer-bys on the street, I don't need to know whether they consider their actions good or not (most people consider their actions good, or at least, justifiable). I judge the morality of the action by the action itself. This "it's not evil in China if whoever happens to rule China thinks it's not evil" argument is a pile of post-modern dung.
An existing drug cannot be re-patented for a new application. It would be absurd if this were the case - someone discovers aspirin can be used to thin the blood, and suddenly every company manufacturing aspirin has to stop? I know patents are crazy in the US, but they're not that insane yet. And in any case, this is in Canada, and hopefully the rot hasn't spread that far yet.
Only trendy pseudo-political students. I wonder if any of them have ever lived through a period of anarchy, or examined countries and times that have. It isn't like the little theoretical anarchy they discuss over latte. When there is no rule of law, then rule of strength is the order of the day. Anarchy never stays truly anarchic - it always becomes structured, usually towards tyranny. The strongest person can beat up the weakest without fear of reprisal from authority (as there is no authority), those with lots of friends can persecute the friendless, likewise without fear of reprisal. Which leaves the weak and friendless the perpetual victims, until strong people step in on their behalf, which is the basics of feudalism. Anarchy, like communism, only works if everyone involved is essentially good to begin with. And people aren't.
Yep. So you should stop basing your morality on the principle that absolute freedom is the pinnacle of goodness. Absolute freedom is functionally equivalent to anarchy.
Because unless your starting your own business (in which case those skills are good) then there are whole fully-qualified departments in the company you work in to do those things for you. If you've got your CS grad doing your bookkeeping for you, something is screwed up in your company.
Nope, because despite sensationalist Slashdot headings, this material isn't harder than diamond. In some tests, it is stiffer. More difficult to bend, not more difficult to scratch.
You have the right to call up NBC and complain about anything you want. And they have the right to tell you to go to hell and hang up on you. That would probably piss you off, and you'd take your business elsewhere. That's your choice. But there's no law saying businesses have to be polite to customers. If they don't particularly care about your business, they can be as abrasive as they want. It could possibly end up costing them if they get a bad rep, but that's entirely their choice.
In this case, the chick obviously wasn't paying with her attention (she hadn't logged on in a month), and Lycos discontinued their services according to their TOS. Sucks to be her. Next time, read the terms properly, or pay for a real service. I'd hate to lose my emails - that's why I run my own mailserver, and pay for a backup MX service.
Come on, how boring is that -- that the meter-tall body was just an abnormal human? Wouldn't it be so much *cooler* if there were a whole race of these!
Yeah, unfortunately science is decided based on empirical observation, not whose theory is cooler.
Except that they didn't dunk him and toss him in a microwave oven, although that would be a novel form of execution. The wet sponge in that event was to help conduct the electricity. The wet sponge in this example was to give the microwaves something to boil so the bacteria would be fried (or rather, boiled).
The thing is, even if rights do exist in abstract, unless there is someone willing to stand up for them, they have no application. Free speech may be an inalienable human right - but that never stopped tyrants from gagging their critics throughout history. It is only when an entity with enough force behind it is willing to protect those rights that they have any practical meaning. So even if those rights existed before the Constitution was written, until the Constitution was written, nobody gave a stuff. It might not have created them in the abstract, philosophical sense, but the Constitution is the only thing that actually ensured the people that had these rights actually got to experience them.
Grandparent says genetics has no influence on obesity. The links above are definitive proof that is not true. Just because I only linked one incidence doesn't mean there aren't others - I only needed to demonstrate one to disprove the point.
Yeah, fat genes. Good one. There is no such thing. If there were such a thing, we could breed a race of superfat humans who can exercise constantly and still gain weight. Second law, eat your heart out!
There are. Genetics is one influence on your metabolism (i.e. How efficient your body is at burning calories). Take two different people, feed them exactly the same foods and give them the same amount of exercise, and they will gain/lose weight at different rates. That's the genetic factor.
Of course, there is also the environmental factor. When you exercise, your metabolism increases. Even if you have a naturally slow metabolism, that doesn't mean your condemned to obesity and its all the genetics fault. It means that you might have to spend an extra 5 minutes on the treadmill compared to your friend. Also, metabolism tends to slow with age. Your friend who can down 3 big macs, never exercise and stay the same weight is going to get fat very quickly when he hits 30 unless he changes his ways.
I'm sorry to hear that you hate real cities. I know that culture and the arts can be a pain in the ass and are best eradicated. And I hate having to see all those interesting people all over the place.
Not to mention all the friendly people with knives and guns who like to threaten you for your possessions. Or all the smog caused by the constant vehicle emissions in such a concentrated area. Or the insane property prices and inflated cost of living.
I live in the suburbs (different country, so probably quite different to US suburbs) but I'd much rather be there than in the city. The constant noise, crowds and pollution would get to me pretty quickly. I like to be able to see a tree without thirty minutes in the car.
I'd say it's an attempt to garner artificial respect by associating the paper with a famous piece of work. The two have no similarity whatsoever, and are not even the same genre (Swift's being satirical and all that). Either that, or it's an unlikely coincidence.
And you're saying they shouldn't bother finding out if it's right or wrong, they should do it anyway and see what happens. While that might be correct in the given context, it's asinine to suggest that it's valid to generalize it. What you're saying is that in any situation with any moral ambiguity, you shouldn't sit down and figure out what the morality actually is; that's for sheep. You should just go ahead and do it, and wait and see if anyone arrests you.
Of course, the reason there was an incentive for these drive-by certs is that the bundling of encryption/authentication is moronic. The reason businesses want certs isn't so their customers know it's them - for the most part, the customers already trust the website. They want them for encryption, even though technically encryption can be done without one. The reason customers look for the little padlock isn't to verify that this site really is amazon.com - they already think it is. They look for the little padlock to check their credit card details are being encrypted, and to reassure themselves that the transaction is safe (even though the little padlock doesn't tell them anything about how their details are stored on the receivers end, and that's probably a larger point of failure than a man-in-the-middle attack).
Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Abusing a monopoly is. When Google starts using OEM contracts to force their competitors in another market off the desktop, then maybe you have a case.
Slashdot Mirror
Too many people seem to think that the money comes from nowhere important, as though the money would just be spent on cocaine otherwise.
In this case, it would probably just be spent on killing Iraqis otherwise. If the Democrats pull out from Iraq as they keep saying, that'll give them a decent pool of cash to play with.
Unless I'm mistaken, Islam considers trinitarian Christians (the majority of them) to be polytheistic - that is, in fact, one of Islam's main doctrinal beefs with Christianity. So assuming that the passage was talking about polytheists, replacing the pronoun with "Christians" might not be so out of line, since in Islamic thinking, "Christian" is a subset of polytheists.
It depends. Our brain's are vastly more complicated than a computer CPU, but they're not designed to do the same thing. There was an interesting explanation of this in a fiction book I read a while back that talked a little about AI.
Basically, it said the human brain was designed for algorithmic complexity, not speed. If you take a brain, and make it ten times faster, it won't be any more intelligent. It'll just take 1/10th of the time to get the same answer as it used to, it still won't be able to solve any more complex problems.
What we do with computer processors is the opposite direction - we just pile up more and more speed. When we want complicated behavior from a CPU, through more speed at it brute-force it. If we want our next-gen parallelized machines to be efficient, we'll have to make changes to our algorithms.
Your argument depends entirely on your assumption that morality is totally relative, a notion which most people with half a brain would disagree with. If someone kills random passer-bys on the street, I don't need to know whether they consider their actions good or not (most people consider their actions good, or at least, justifiable). I judge the morality of the action by the action itself. This "it's not evil in China if whoever happens to rule China thinks it's not evil" argument is a pile of post-modern dung.
An existing drug cannot be re-patented for a new application. It would be absurd if this were the case - someone discovers aspirin can be used to thin the blood, and suddenly every company manufacturing aspirin has to stop? I know patents are crazy in the US, but they're not that insane yet. And in any case, this is in Canada, and hopefully the rot hasn't spread that far yet.
Only trendy pseudo-political students. I wonder if any of them have ever lived through a period of anarchy, or examined countries and times that have. It isn't like the little theoretical anarchy they discuss over latte. When there is no rule of law, then rule of strength is the order of the day. Anarchy never stays truly anarchic - it always becomes structured, usually towards tyranny. The strongest person can beat up the weakest without fear of reprisal from authority (as there is no authority), those with lots of friends can persecute the friendless, likewise without fear of reprisal. Which leaves the weak and friendless the perpetual victims, until strong people step in on their behalf, which is the basics of feudalism. Anarchy, like communism, only works if everyone involved is essentially good to begin with. And people aren't.
Yep. So you should stop basing your morality on the principle that absolute freedom is the pinnacle of goodness. Absolute freedom is functionally equivalent to anarchy.
If their religion says proselytize, and you forbid it, then you're imposing your beliefs on them, restricting their freedom to evangelize.
Because unless your starting your own business (in which case those skills are good) then there are whole fully-qualified departments in the company you work in to do those things for you. If you've got your CS grad doing your bookkeeping for you, something is screwed up in your company.
Nope, because despite sensationalist Slashdot headings, this material isn't harder than diamond. In some tests, it is stiffer. More difficult to bend, not more difficult to scratch.
You have the right to call up NBC and complain about anything you want. And they have the right to tell you to go to hell and hang up on you. That would probably piss you off, and you'd take your business elsewhere. That's your choice. But there's no law saying businesses have to be polite to customers. If they don't particularly care about your business, they can be as abrasive as they want. It could possibly end up costing them if they get a bad rep, but that's entirely their choice.
In this case, the chick obviously wasn't paying with her attention (she hadn't logged on in a month), and Lycos discontinued their services according to their TOS. Sucks to be her. Next time, read the terms properly, or pay for a real service. I'd hate to lose my emails - that's why I run my own mailserver, and pay for a backup MX service.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."
- George Bernard Shaw
That decides who gets the funding, not who's right.
Come on, how boring is that -- that the meter-tall body was just an abnormal human? Wouldn't it be so much *cooler* if there were a whole race of these!
Yeah, unfortunately science is decided based on empirical observation, not whose theory is cooler.
Except that they didn't dunk him and toss him in a microwave oven, although that would be a novel form of execution. The wet sponge in that event was to help conduct the electricity. The wet sponge in this example was to give the microwaves something to boil so the bacteria would be fried (or rather, boiled).
Same item, but totally different process.
The thing is, even if rights do exist in abstract, unless there is someone willing to stand up for them, they have no application. Free speech may be an inalienable human right - but that never stopped tyrants from gagging their critics throughout history. It is only when an entity with enough force behind it is willing to protect those rights that they have any practical meaning. So even if those rights existed before the Constitution was written, until the Constitution was written, nobody gave a stuff. It might not have created them in the abstract, philosophical sense, but the Constitution is the only thing that actually ensured the people that had these rights actually got to experience them.
Grandparent says genetics has no influence on obesity. The links above are definitive proof that is not true. Just because I only linked one incidence doesn't mean there aren't others - I only needed to demonstrate one to disprove the point.
Yeah, fat genes. Good one. There is no such thing. If there were such a thing, we could breed a race of superfat humans who can exercise constantly and still gain weight. Second law, eat your heart out!
There are. Genetics is one influence on your metabolism (i.e. How efficient your body is at burning calories). Take two different people, feed them exactly the same foods and give them the same amount of exercise, and they will gain/lose weight at different rates. That's the genetic factor.
Of course, there is also the environmental factor. When you exercise, your metabolism increases. Even if you have a naturally slow metabolism, that doesn't mean your condemned to obesity and its all the genetics fault. It means that you might have to spend an extra 5 minutes on the treadmill compared to your friend. Also, metabolism tends to slow with age. Your friend who can down 3 big macs, never exercise and stay the same weight is going to get fat very quickly when he hits 30 unless he changes his ways.
I'm sorry to hear that you hate real cities. I know that culture and the arts can be a pain in the ass and are best eradicated. And I hate having to see all those interesting people all over the place.
Not to mention all the friendly people with knives and guns who like to threaten you for your possessions. Or all the smog caused by the constant vehicle emissions in such a concentrated area. Or the insane property prices and inflated cost of living.
I live in the suburbs (different country, so probably quite different to US suburbs) but I'd much rather be there than in the city. The constant noise, crowds and pollution would get to me pretty quickly. I like to be able to see a tree without thirty minutes in the car.
Because coercing people to live the way you think they should be living is a great idea.
I agree with what you say, but if that's what the OP intended to say, he phrased it poorly.
I'd say it's an attempt to garner artificial respect by associating the paper with a famous piece of work. The two have no similarity whatsoever, and are not even the same genre (Swift's being satirical and all that). Either that, or it's an unlikely coincidence.
Most people's beef with myspace isn't that it's pages defy standards; it's that they look like crap.
And you're saying they shouldn't bother finding out if it's right or wrong, they should do it anyway and see what happens. While that might be correct in the given context, it's asinine to suggest that it's valid to generalize it. What you're saying is that in any situation with any moral ambiguity, you shouldn't sit down and figure out what the morality actually is; that's for sheep. You should just go ahead and do it, and wait and see if anyone arrests you.
Of course, the reason there was an incentive for these drive-by certs is that the bundling of encryption/authentication is moronic. The reason businesses want certs isn't so their customers know it's them - for the most part, the customers already trust the website. They want them for encryption, even though technically encryption can be done without one. The reason customers look for the little padlock isn't to verify that this site really is amazon.com - they already think it is. They look for the little padlock to check their credit card details are being encrypted, and to reassure themselves that the transaction is safe (even though the little padlock doesn't tell them anything about how their details are stored on the receivers end, and that's probably a larger point of failure than a man-in-the-middle attack).
Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Abusing a monopoly is. When Google starts using OEM contracts to force their competitors in another market off the desktop, then maybe you have a case.