Anyone see T2:3D at Universal Studios Orlando?
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Mechanical Butterflies?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I haven't been there in several years, but one of the things I always loved was that in the video you watch whilst waiting in the lobby, there was a fantastic shot of a person touching a butterfly that - upon close examination - was actually a robot (i.e. by the cyberdyne corp. in the video).
Of course, I'm also having a vision of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, not so much because he mentioned robot butterflies (he didn't, in fact) but just the general concept he had of nano-tech gardens.
"Wait a minute, isn't that the same as earth and the rest of the planets? I mean, mercury doesn't get this kind of attention."
No, what they're saying is this: Earth has two basic kinds of geo-physical features, those caused by extraterrestrial effects such as meteor impacts, and those caused by terrestrial effects such as techtonic plate shifting or magma bursts as lava through volcanos.
The point here is that mainstream thought suggests that the craters/valleys were caused by water pooling/travel akin to that of earth, whereas this new model suggests that the craters/valleys were exclusively caused by the impacts. In such a system, you explain why the tributaries that are normally associated with water bodies aren't present on mars, along with several other problems.
"We have laws in this country which allow prior restraint of publication for materials which a company claims it has a copyright for."
Yes, we do. If not, I could publish copyrighted materials in any format I wanted, including ways that massively devalued both those copyrights and related ones, and all the legal owner could do would be to attempt to clean up the mess. By having preventative means such as this, we protect intellectual property.
" The government is building a database of information about you, run by a convicted felon, in order to protect your "safety"."
Who's the convicted felon, again? More importantly, whats the point of a criminal system if we dont believe the freed man is reformed? Further, you aren't providing any argument that indicates such a database wouldn't help protect people. You may think its a fair assumption, but no trained thinker would agree.
"The FBI confiscates the computers of your neighbors when the cable company accuses them of service theft"
So I'm not clear, are you saying that the FBI should be unable to seize evidence in a criminal investigation of theft? These people distorted equipment to receive a service which they did not pay for from the cable company. They were attempting to steal, just as much as if I climbed up a pole and illegally connected a wire into the cable box. Wake up, just because a big company complains, doesn't mean they're being immoral. In fact, the perpetrators here were being immoral, if not outright criminal.
"Habeas Corpus is suspended for U.S. citizens who are accused of 'terrorism', while the C.I.A. uses unmanned drones firing missiles to assassinate 'terrorists' that have been tried in no court of law"
Habeas Corpus wasn't violated for a single person. No one (literally zero individuals) have reported that they were held for any innapropriate amount of time. Those detained were those who statistically bore a possiblility of connection, and were released within one day. Its always legal to do this: thats why the police may arrest you and hold you for up to 48 hours (depending on the state) before releasing you, even if no crime is charged. Following such an event, you're legally enabled to charge them with false-arrest. You'll notice that not a single person who was so detained believed it was an illegal arrest, hence there not being a single such charge. You just assume there was, despite there being no evidence. Now as to the targets of the CIA: they're not American citizens! In fact, they're members of a group of people who have openly declared war upon the United States. Just because they lack a physical homeland to call their "country" whom we can negotiate with, doesn't mean they get to be free from reprisal. They made a criminal act by commiting an act of war against us, now they're reaping the consequences. You don't start something you're unwilling to finish.
"The country is run by a man who was elected purely by fraud, and the news media doesn't bother to report that in the 2002 elections (this month!) more than 100,000 legal ballots weren't counted in Florida (again!)."
Bush wasn't elected by fraud at all. I personally (i.e. physically) assisted in the recounting of the ballots in Florida (due to my affiliation with the Miami Herald, the paper whichc onducted it). I can promise you - Bush actually won. Gore, despite my best desires (I voted for him) lost the vote. Sure, he got the popular vote, but the US government has never been determined by the popular vote. Its always been the way it is now: representative democracy through the electoral college, all of whom voted according to their constituencies. As to the current elections in my home state, I was disapointed that my candidate (McBride) lost to Bush, but thats life. People lose, people win.
Grow up buddy, stop whining about things that didn't happen, and start working towards fixing these massive problems you find with the world.
My mistake on the arbitrator as opposed to courts point, I misspoke.
As to having effect outside of the UK, I think that its important that the UK would essentially be a haven for misappropriate of copyright/trademark if I'm properly interpreting the decision.
Consider this: there are many highly known but not commercial trademark/copyrights, such as the design of the white house, the designs of public service uniforms, etc. I can now make a commercial product that features someone in realistic (i.e. identical to reality) uniforms of the nation's military, and advertise them as military, so long as I carefully dont claim them to actually be military itself. Then, I can profit off this, and actually claim that _I_ own the copyright/trademark as is the case for the TARDIS/telephone booth. (in the UK, that is)
Just a note - you've got to love a reference in this post to _Good Omens_.
On a related note (so that this post isn't viewed as a troll or whatever), I think its important that what the courts basically said here is that if you're not using a trademark for a commercial use, its not really yours. In a meaningful way, they may have just made it possible for people to use any non-commercial trademark in a way that doesn't infringe on the original use.
This isn't these stores taking "responsibility", its them acknowledging that the parents who can't police their children properly will shove their responsibility (that of the parents) onto the store. The fact is, if parents were able to actually take care of their children, it wouldn't matter if hard-core pornography was shelved next to Barney cartoons - the kids wouldn't ever actually get access. My parents made it quite clear whenever I was not to be doing something, and when I went behind their backs I was inevitably punished. More importantly, they explained their reasons for each edict, and as a result I respected their decisions as my parents instead of resenting them blindly. Thats the lesson the stores are teaching parents: if you dont take care of your kids, we'll do it for you. Thats plain fucking lazy.
It is worth noting, I think, that this means you're consuming quite a bit of bandwidth through the day (i.e. if you're doing music constantly, for seven hours, thats somewhere around 300-600 megs, depending on your compression). While I'm not necessarily supporting prohibiting this, its something to consider (especially if your company is large proportionally to a small connection)
Re:50 years from now there will be peace on earth.
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GUIs for Robots
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· Score: 1
Heh, reminds me of the quote from Spaceballs:
"Funny, she doesn't look Druish"
and
"Just what I need, a Druish princess."
Actually, a Druid is Druid, i.e. you call me a Druid, just like someone who follows Shiva is a Hindu (not Hinduish...of course you could also call them a Shivite, but thats neither here nor there).
Of course, the fact is that they still keep putting out these ideas, so it seems they're not being dissuaded from _trying_ them, even if they feel that the general public rejects them.
Its a little akin to the little kid who, every time a toy comes out, begs his parents for it. Sure, they dont cave in once, but because there's no punishment (just a stern refusal), he never has to stop...until we punish companies for even proposing ideas like this, we'll never be rid of them.
Wait, did I just accidentally drift into a Swiftian commentary there? Hmmm.
Re:50 years from now there will be peace on earth.
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GUIs for Robots
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· Score: 1
This is really one of the oldest debates about America; I forget the name of the person who said it, but theres a quote that goes "America isn't a place of origin, its a destination." Their point was, most "Americans" (esp. at the time of the quote, the 1800s) were not born in America, but instead immigrated there. As a result of this perception of America, it became expected of immigrants to hold on to their cultural roots, resulting in not only the racist enclaves that sparked numerous riots in that century (the new movie, Gangs of NY, or something like that with Leo DiCaprio refers to one of these), but also the belief that you could be something like "German-American" or "African-American." It was the desire not to lose their old culture.
Of course, the phrase African-American is uniquely difficult to discuss, considering a significant percentage of blacks in American owe no more ancestry to Africa than whites, since their relatives came from Jamaica, India or any other area of the world with natives of similar pigmentation. I have a friend who is Maori (New Zealand) who gets called African American, despite his ancestors having left Africa over 13,000 years ago.
Frankly, I have no aspirations for people to ever ditch that part of their self-description, because its not coming. Its not coming for the same reason that Europe hasn't yet solidified into a viable Political and Military force in the EU: because no one wants to admit that history is irrelevant except in terms of understanding the present, and it shouldn't be used to shape the present. Why do we have war in Israel? Because Palestinians dont want to just assimilate. Why are the European nations unable to stop the US from doing whatever we want? Because they refuse to act as a single entity and disregard their previous seperations. Why are Pakistan and India fighting over a shattered moonscape of a peice of land called Kashmir? Because they dont want to acknowledge that, Muslim or Christian, they're not that different.
I dont think he "deserves" anything but appropriate treatment for his acting capability. Watching him in the Sci-Fi channel production (i forget what it was called, but it was about him having been peiced together from dozens of body-part donors, and having to determine his "self"), I am pretty sure he's lacking as an actor.
If, then, the producers of the film determine that for whatever reason (incl. writing reasons or his failures) that they dont want his product (and he was foolish enough to not contract for work time as opposed to a finished product) then I say thats the way life goes. A smart actor would either get assurance that his scenes would be paid for, regardless of their use, or would get assurance that they would be used.
Besides, he knew what he was getting into with acting - no one held a gun to his head.
This is flamebait? What are you moderators doing with your points? I made a valid response, continuing in my previous line of argument. How on earth could that be flamebait?
I'm thinking the names of moderators need to be attached to the moderation effects, so they can be held accountable for preposterous claims.
I'm _praying_ he wont. On cinescape's site, like around a month ago, there was a link to Wheaton's personal site where he was crying like a little girl that they were talking about cutting his scenes. He was annoying as a little deity-wannabe in the series, so how could he be anything BUT annoying in the movie...
I work with computer graphics as a hobby, and I can tell you I _wish_ I could encode to Quicktime5 or 6. With the exception of the latest divx codecs, quicktime is the top codec out there.
Oh of course I've thought of questions of disagreement of morality. I'm a philosophy major with an anthropology minor, so I've spent quite a bit of time discussing the ideas of relativism (with regards to morality). Frankly, I agree with Kant and Nietzsche that there are certain Absolute Moral Codes which exist regardless of the existence (or lack thereof) any theological basis thereof.
In other words, its always wrong to murder an innocent (although, to avoid the inevitable comment, you're not innocent if you're supporting a criminal, meaning no one is innocent in Afghanistan if they dont resist the Taliban, for example). To make it more relavent here, I would say that child pornography is always immoral; I would say that pirating software is immoral; There are more examples, but thats enough for that point.
Of course, its clear that some things (like your sexual activities within the realm of safe, i.e. excluding rape/S&M) are not absolutely moral or immoral. In that situation, you must concede to the tyranny of the majority.
Frankly, it was put best as "Lump it or Leave it;" if you disagree with the moral codes of the majority, no one is forcing you to stay. One of the greatest priviledges of the USA is that you can leave with no effort. In other words, if the majority of the population feels that promiscuity (an aspect of my personality I have no problem admitting) is immoral, its up to me whether I feel the need to leave to avoid their criticism.
I can say with authority, the people _did_ elect him. I was personally involved in the recount of the florida votes as done by the Miami Herald, which determined that overwhelmingly (i.e. beyond statistical variation, even) that Bush defeated Gore. Much to my chagrin, of course, since I voted for Al. I agree that the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds in placing Bush, but within weeks he would have been placed into office regardless.
Some good points, but I want to respond to a few others:
"Third, not all theft of business plans is illegal. If you can figure out what a competitor is up to through public information and jump the gun on them, that's generally legal."
So then all you're saying is this: you want privacy so that you can protect your slower development schedules. If you're my competitor, and you beat me to the market, that means in a very darwinian sense that you are more fit to survive. I'd say this would better strengthen the market as a whole.
"You have no business telling any person that they should limit the deterrents they will use because you think self-defense is sufficient."
I'm unclear as to why I'm not permitted to say what I think is the reasonable limit of deterrance, while you are. Frankly, the only difference between what you and I are saying is the location of the line of privacy - you are not disagreeing with me by nature, but instead by degree. As such, you're being a bit hypocritical in telling me not to tell other people how to protect themselves.
"The police at most deter crime and punish criminals; they do not prevent crime, and you cannot rely on them."
First of all, "deter" means to "prevent". Just wanted to point out a fundamental paradox in your statement. Second, my post included the fact that you need a criminal defense force that can be depended on for my philosophy to work. As such, you cannot attack my argument by simply refusing the premise. Simple logic demands that to assault an argument, you can only assault the components, not the premise that establishes the boundaries for the discussion.
"In fact, police departments have argued in court, successfully, that they have no duty to protect people."
Okay, first I've _never_ heard of this happening in court. If you could name the case[s] where this happened, I'd be quite interested to pull the casefile and review it, so I can speak from a fully informed perspective. As far as I know, the motto for every single police station in the United States of America is "To Serve and Protect." Sounds to me like their job is, frankly, to serve and protect people.
"Well, then don't keep your passwords private; you must be deceiving somebody. Publish all of yours accounts and passwords here, along with your credit card numbers, Social Security account number, and so on."
Clearly, you weren't in the mood to read the whole sentence. I specifically stated ",little else", meaning that there are a small set of actions where privacy is for reasons other than deception. Clearly, passwords are one of them. If you had read what I said, instead of looking for an out-of-context comment to respond to, you'd have realized this. What's interesting, though, is that you included the "little else" phrase in your quote of me, even though it refuted your response. Curious.
By the way, I'm curious as to what moderator docked my message a point for, since I see no comment with the score reduction. If it's just that I presented a point of view that they disagreed with, I'm quite disapointed in them. The moderation system is only intended to eliminate unhelpful comments (and conversely to praise helpful ones), not to filter out ideas you simply do not like.
"Privacy is essential to democracy and freedom."
Is it? I'm proud of being an American, but I'm also proud of everything I do, even my mistakes. I wouldn't be concerned for a second if every one of my keyclicks was logged, because I hold myself to a high enough moral standard that I simply dont do things like download child porn, or hurt people. Couldn't I acquire more freedom, in terms of safety, if everyone was held to such a filter?
"But if the wrong people get ahold of that information, you become a target for theft." I hate to break this to you, but unless you hide that info explicitly, it will always, inexorably, be known. Just drive down a street, and you'll be able to identify the wealthier houses, and choose which one to break into.
"You keep the plans secret" Yup, secret from competators, but not necisarily the government. If you could trust the government (don't flame that yet, I've got a conclusion coming, I promise), then if you showed it what you were doing, you could be ASURED that you'd never have a plan stolen, since the government could always confirm that it was your original idea. In this way, reduced privacy has again provided more secure freedom.
"You don't let strangers know your address." No, thats not how. The way to protect yourself from sexual assault is becoming stronger. I'm not, in any way, suggesting that it is ever the victim's fault. I'm suggesting that the means to protection is strength (i.e. self-defense training, etc.) and through a willingness to trust your protectors (i.e. police). If police were watching my house 24-7, it'd be pretty easy to feel safe that a criminal wasn't going to break in.
"How do you keep telemarketers from bothering you?" Well personally, I turn it around and start asking them if they've found Jesus yet. (I'm not a Christian, just look at my name, but its quite funny to simply read from the Jehovah's Witness pamphlet I picked up. Whats hysterical is that they cannot hang up first, so they're stuck listening to me). Then, if I get bored, I simply ask if they're trying to sell me somehting. If so, I hang up, problem solved. Alternatively, get caller ID: again, information provides freedom in that you can choose to ignore the caller.
Privacy is essential for deception, little else. Information is the key to protection, but only when we can trust the government.
And that brings me to my last point: we need a government we trust (incl. police, etc.) for my sort of philosophy to work; we need politicians who will protect us, and police who will serve us. But if we have that - if we know that we wont be illegally abused by Ashcroft and his cronies, then we have nothing to fear in providing our information to them. If I knew the cops weren't masturbating to the camera pointed in my bedroom window, I'd have very little problem having sex in front of it. As I've said, you've nothing to hide if you've done nothing wrong.
I hate to reply twice, but I want to just add a quick point: why on earth are you buying and consuming food/drugs/alcohol that you know are bad for you, unless you're willing to deal with the consequences? An adult who purchases ho-hos has decided that the consequences (increased fat/calories, and the subsequent results) are acceptable, and thats fine. However, that impacts the business decisions of insurance companies, and rightfully so. If I go in for insurance, I _want_ them to know my eating and exercise habits, because I'm proud of having a healthy lifestyle, and feel that I deserve cheaper insurance since I'm dramatically less likely to need service. Life's tough, so if you cant deal with the consequences of actions, dont undertake those actions. Eat a peice of fruit, for pete's sake.
(I'm not, of course, suggesting that LetterJ is the one eating the ho-hos, I'm using the rhetorical "you" in the above paragraph).
(a) You provided no information for the debate, so you're a troll. Leave.
(b) You're too cowardly to attach your names to your comment. Since there can be no fear of reprisal, this means your cowardice reflects a lack of conviction to your ideas. Because of this, you're irrelevent.
a) Why, exactly, do you feel the need to insult someone with vulgarity? All it does is make you look ignorant (since you couldn't express your thoughts without vulgarity) and remind everyone else why your thoughts are irrelevent.
b) I'm not doing anything illegal, whatsoever. I'd be curious as to where you acquired information to the contrary, since it would clearly be false.
c) I'm not a troll. I provided relevent comments as part of a discussion. You, on the other hand, only provided an insult. That means, by definition, that _you_ are a troll, and not I.
"If they tie this stuff together, your indication that you don't smoke combined with your carton a week purchasing of cigarettes will result in an increase in premiums. "
So are you saying that the LYING is what will increase your premiums?
Insurance companies and other companies have a right to adjust their hiring and sales policies based on this sort of info. Why should an insurance company have to provide for you if you are smoking, despite your claims to the contrary?
The truth is, with your game running at 1600x1200, anti-aliasing isn't going to do much for you anyway. At that level, the pixel jaggies can become unnoticable.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't been there in several years, but one of the things I always loved was that in the video you watch whilst waiting in the lobby, there was a fantastic shot of a person touching a butterfly that - upon close examination - was actually a robot (i.e. by the cyberdyne corp. in the video).
Of course, I'm also having a vision of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, not so much because he mentioned robot butterflies (he didn't, in fact) but just the general concept he had of nano-tech gardens.
"Wait a minute, isn't that the same as earth and the rest of the planets? I mean, mercury doesn't get this kind of attention."
No, what they're saying is this: Earth has two basic kinds of geo-physical features, those caused by extraterrestrial effects such as meteor impacts, and those caused by terrestrial effects such as techtonic plate shifting or magma bursts as lava through volcanos.
The point here is that mainstream thought suggests that the craters/valleys were caused by water pooling/travel akin to that of earth, whereas this new model suggests that the craters/valleys were exclusively caused by the impacts. In such a system, you explain why the tributaries that are normally associated with water bodies aren't present on mars, along with several other problems.
Okay, lets take this one point at a time.
"We have laws in this country which allow prior restraint of publication for materials which a company claims it has a copyright for."
Yes, we do. If not, I could publish copyrighted materials in any format I wanted, including ways that massively devalued both those copyrights and related ones, and all the legal owner could do would be to attempt to clean up the mess. By having preventative means such as this, we protect intellectual property.
" The government is building a database of information about you, run by a convicted felon, in order to protect your "safety"."
Who's the convicted felon, again? More importantly, whats the point of a criminal system if we dont believe the freed man is reformed? Further, you aren't providing any argument that indicates such a database wouldn't help protect people. You may think its a fair assumption, but no trained thinker would agree.
"The FBI confiscates the computers of your neighbors when the cable company accuses them of service theft"
So I'm not clear, are you saying that the FBI should be unable to seize evidence in a criminal investigation of theft? These people distorted equipment to receive a service which they did not pay for from the cable company. They were attempting to steal, just as much as if I climbed up a pole and illegally connected a wire into the cable box. Wake up, just because a big company complains, doesn't mean they're being immoral. In fact, the perpetrators here were being immoral, if not outright criminal.
"Habeas Corpus is suspended for U.S. citizens who are accused of 'terrorism', while the C.I.A. uses unmanned drones firing missiles to assassinate 'terrorists' that have been tried in no court of law"
Habeas Corpus wasn't violated for a single person. No one (literally zero individuals) have reported that they were held for any innapropriate amount of time. Those detained were those who statistically bore a possiblility of connection, and were released within one day. Its always legal to do this: thats why the police may arrest you and hold you for up to 48 hours (depending on the state) before releasing you, even if no crime is charged. Following such an event, you're legally enabled to charge them with false-arrest. You'll notice that not a single person who was so detained believed it was an illegal arrest, hence there not being a single such charge. You just assume there was, despite there being no evidence. Now as to the targets of the CIA: they're not American citizens! In fact, they're members of a group of people who have openly declared war upon the United States. Just because they lack a physical homeland to call their "country" whom we can negotiate with, doesn't mean they get to be free from reprisal. They made a criminal act by commiting an act of war against us, now they're reaping the consequences. You don't start something you're unwilling to finish.
"The country is run by a man who was elected purely by fraud, and the news media doesn't bother to report that in the 2002 elections (this month!) more than 100,000 legal ballots weren't counted in Florida (again!)."
Bush wasn't elected by fraud at all. I personally (i.e. physically) assisted in the recounting of the ballots in Florida (due to my affiliation with the Miami Herald, the paper whichc onducted it). I can promise you - Bush actually won. Gore, despite my best desires (I voted for him) lost the vote. Sure, he got the popular vote, but the US government has never been determined by the popular vote. Its always been the way it is now: representative democracy through the electoral college, all of whom voted according to their constituencies. As to the current elections in my home state, I was disapointed that my candidate (McBride) lost to Bush, but thats life. People lose, people win.
Grow up buddy, stop whining about things that didn't happen, and start working towards fixing these massive problems you find with the world.
My mistake on the arbitrator as opposed to courts point, I misspoke.
As to having effect outside of the UK, I think that its important that the UK would essentially be a haven for misappropriate of copyright/trademark if I'm properly interpreting the decision.
Consider this: there are many highly known but not commercial trademark/copyrights, such as the design of the white house, the designs of public service uniforms, etc. I can now make a commercial product that features someone in realistic (i.e. identical to reality) uniforms of the nation's military, and advertise them as military, so long as I carefully dont claim them to actually be military itself. Then, I can profit off this, and actually claim that _I_ own the copyright/trademark as is the case for the TARDIS/telephone booth. (in the UK, that is)
Just a note - you've got to love a reference in this post to _Good Omens_. On a related note (so that this post isn't viewed as a troll or whatever), I think its important that what the courts basically said here is that if you're not using a trademark for a commercial use, its not really yours. In a meaningful way, they may have just made it possible for people to use any non-commercial trademark in a way that doesn't infringe on the original use.
This isn't these stores taking "responsibility", its them acknowledging that the parents who can't police their children properly will shove their responsibility (that of the parents) onto the store. The fact is, if parents were able to actually take care of their children, it wouldn't matter if hard-core pornography was shelved next to Barney cartoons - the kids wouldn't ever actually get access. My parents made it quite clear whenever I was not to be doing something, and when I went behind their backs I was inevitably punished. More importantly, they explained their reasons for each edict, and as a result I respected their decisions as my parents instead of resenting them blindly. Thats the lesson the stores are teaching parents: if you dont take care of your kids, we'll do it for you. Thats plain fucking lazy.
It is worth noting, I think, that this means you're consuming quite a bit of bandwidth through the day (i.e. if you're doing music constantly, for seven hours, thats somewhere around 300-600 megs, depending on your compression). While I'm not necessarily supporting prohibiting this, its something to consider (especially if your company is large proportionally to a small connection)
Heh, reminds me of the quote from Spaceballs: "Funny, she doesn't look Druish" and "Just what I need, a Druish princess."
Actually, a Druid is Druid, i.e. you call me a Druid, just like someone who follows Shiva is a Hindu (not Hinduish...of course you could also call them a Shivite, but thats neither here nor there).
Of course, the fact is that they still keep putting out these ideas, so it seems they're not being dissuaded from _trying_ them, even if they feel that the general public rejects them. Its a little akin to the little kid who, every time a toy comes out, begs his parents for it. Sure, they dont cave in once, but because there's no punishment (just a stern refusal), he never has to stop...until we punish companies for even proposing ideas like this, we'll never be rid of them. Wait, did I just accidentally drift into a Swiftian commentary there? Hmmm.
This is really one of the oldest debates about America; I forget the name of the person who said it, but theres a quote that goes "America isn't a place of origin, its a destination." Their point was, most "Americans" (esp. at the time of the quote, the 1800s) were not born in America, but instead immigrated there. As a result of this perception of America, it became expected of immigrants to hold on to their cultural roots, resulting in not only the racist enclaves that sparked numerous riots in that century (the new movie, Gangs of NY, or something like that with Leo DiCaprio refers to one of these), but also the belief that you could be something like "German-American" or "African-American." It was the desire not to lose their old culture.
Of course, the phrase African-American is uniquely difficult to discuss, considering a significant percentage of blacks in American owe no more ancestry to Africa than whites, since their relatives came from Jamaica, India or any other area of the world with natives of similar pigmentation. I have a friend who is Maori (New Zealand) who gets called African American, despite his ancestors having left Africa over 13,000 years ago.
Frankly, I have no aspirations for people to ever ditch that part of their self-description, because its not coming. Its not coming for the same reason that Europe hasn't yet solidified into a viable Political and Military force in the EU: because no one wants to admit that history is irrelevant except in terms of understanding the present, and it shouldn't be used to shape the present. Why do we have war in Israel? Because Palestinians dont want to just assimilate. Why are the European nations unable to stop the US from doing whatever we want? Because they refuse to act as a single entity and disregard their previous seperations. Why are Pakistan and India fighting over a shattered moonscape of a peice of land called Kashmir? Because they dont want to acknowledge that, Muslim or Christian, they're not that different.
People hate people, its the nature of the beast.
I dont think he "deserves" anything but appropriate treatment for his acting capability. Watching him in the Sci-Fi channel production (i forget what it was called, but it was about him having been peiced together from dozens of body-part donors, and having to determine his "self"), I am pretty sure he's lacking as an actor. If, then, the producers of the film determine that for whatever reason (incl. writing reasons or his failures) that they dont want his product (and he was foolish enough to not contract for work time as opposed to a finished product) then I say thats the way life goes. A smart actor would either get assurance that his scenes would be paid for, regardless of their use, or would get assurance that they would be used. Besides, he knew what he was getting into with acting - no one held a gun to his head.
This is flamebait? What are you moderators doing with your points? I made a valid response, continuing in my previous line of argument. How on earth could that be flamebait? I'm thinking the names of moderators need to be attached to the moderation effects, so they can be held accountable for preposterous claims.
I'm _praying_ he wont. On cinescape's site, like around a month ago, there was a link to Wheaton's personal site where he was crying like a little girl that they were talking about cutting his scenes. He was annoying as a little deity-wannabe in the series, so how could he be anything BUT annoying in the movie...
I work with computer graphics as a hobby, and I can tell you I _wish_ I could encode to Quicktime5 or 6. With the exception of the latest divx codecs, quicktime is the top codec out there.
Oh of course I've thought of questions of disagreement of morality. I'm a philosophy major with an anthropology minor, so I've spent quite a bit of time discussing the ideas of relativism (with regards to morality). Frankly, I agree with Kant and Nietzsche that there are certain Absolute Moral Codes which exist regardless of the existence (or lack thereof) any theological basis thereof.
In other words, its always wrong to murder an innocent (although, to avoid the inevitable comment, you're not innocent if you're supporting a criminal, meaning no one is innocent in Afghanistan if they dont resist the Taliban, for example). To make it more relavent here, I would say that child pornography is always immoral; I would say that pirating software is immoral; There are more examples, but thats enough for that point.
Of course, its clear that some things (like your sexual activities within the realm of safe, i.e. excluding rape/S&M) are not absolutely moral or immoral. In that situation, you must concede to the tyranny of the majority.
Frankly, it was put best as "Lump it or Leave it;" if you disagree with the moral codes of the majority, no one is forcing you to stay. One of the greatest priviledges of the USA is that you can leave with no effort. In other words, if the majority of the population feels that promiscuity (an aspect of my personality I have no problem admitting) is immoral, its up to me whether I feel the need to leave to avoid their criticism.
I can say with authority, the people _did_ elect him. I was personally involved in the recount of the florida votes as done by the Miami Herald, which determined that overwhelmingly (i.e. beyond statistical variation, even) that Bush defeated Gore. Much to my chagrin, of course, since I voted for Al. I agree that the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds in placing Bush, but within weeks he would have been placed into office regardless.
Some good points, but I want to respond to a few others:
"Third, not all theft of business plans is illegal. If you can figure out what a competitor is up to through public information and jump the gun on them, that's generally legal."
So then all you're saying is this: you want privacy so that you can protect your slower development schedules. If you're my competitor, and you beat me to the market, that means in a very darwinian sense that you are more fit to survive. I'd say this would better strengthen the market as a whole.
"You have no business telling any person that they should limit the deterrents they will use because you think self-defense is sufficient."
I'm unclear as to why I'm not permitted to say what I think is the reasonable limit of deterrance, while you are. Frankly, the only difference between what you and I are saying is the location of the line of privacy - you are not disagreeing with me by nature, but instead by degree. As such, you're being a bit hypocritical in telling me not to tell other people how to protect themselves.
"The police at most deter crime and punish criminals; they do not prevent crime, and you cannot rely on them."
First of all, "deter" means to "prevent". Just wanted to point out a fundamental paradox in your statement. Second, my post included the fact that you need a criminal defense force that can be depended on for my philosophy to work. As such, you cannot attack my argument by simply refusing the premise. Simple logic demands that to assault an argument, you can only assault the components, not the premise that establishes the boundaries for the discussion.
"In fact, police departments have argued in court, successfully, that they have no duty to protect people."
Okay, first I've _never_ heard of this happening in court. If you could name the case[s] where this happened, I'd be quite interested to pull the casefile and review it, so I can speak from a fully informed perspective. As far as I know, the motto for every single police station in the United States of America is "To Serve and Protect." Sounds to me like their job is, frankly, to serve and protect people.
"Well, then don't keep your passwords private; you must be deceiving somebody. Publish all of yours accounts and passwords here, along with your credit card numbers, Social Security account number, and so on."
Clearly, you weren't in the mood to read the whole sentence. I specifically stated ",little else", meaning that there are a small set of actions where privacy is for reasons other than deception. Clearly, passwords are one of them. If you had read what I said, instead of looking for an out-of-context comment to respond to, you'd have realized this. What's interesting, though, is that you included the "little else" phrase in your quote of me, even though it refuted your response. Curious.
By the way, I'm curious as to what moderator docked my message a point for, since I see no comment with the score reduction. If it's just that I presented a point of view that they disagreed with, I'm quite disapointed in them. The moderation system is only intended to eliminate unhelpful comments (and conversely to praise helpful ones), not to filter out ideas you simply do not like.
"Privacy is essential to democracy and freedom." Is it? I'm proud of being an American, but I'm also proud of everything I do, even my mistakes. I wouldn't be concerned for a second if every one of my keyclicks was logged, because I hold myself to a high enough moral standard that I simply dont do things like download child porn, or hurt people. Couldn't I acquire more freedom, in terms of safety, if everyone was held to such a filter?
"But if the wrong people get ahold of that information, you become a target for theft." I hate to break this to you, but unless you hide that info explicitly, it will always, inexorably, be known. Just drive down a street, and you'll be able to identify the wealthier houses, and choose which one to break into.
"You keep the plans secret" Yup, secret from competators, but not necisarily the government. If you could trust the government (don't flame that yet, I've got a conclusion coming, I promise), then if you showed it what you were doing, you could be ASURED that you'd never have a plan stolen, since the government could always confirm that it was your original idea. In this way, reduced privacy has again provided more secure freedom.
"You don't let strangers know your address." No, thats not how. The way to protect yourself from sexual assault is becoming stronger. I'm not, in any way, suggesting that it is ever the victim's fault. I'm suggesting that the means to protection is strength (i.e. self-defense training, etc.) and through a willingness to trust your protectors (i.e. police). If police were watching my house 24-7, it'd be pretty easy to feel safe that a criminal wasn't going to break in.
"How do you keep telemarketers from bothering you?" Well personally, I turn it around and start asking them if they've found Jesus yet. (I'm not a Christian, just look at my name, but its quite funny to simply read from the Jehovah's Witness pamphlet I picked up. Whats hysterical is that they cannot hang up first, so they're stuck listening to me). Then, if I get bored, I simply ask if they're trying to sell me somehting. If so, I hang up, problem solved. Alternatively, get caller ID: again, information provides freedom in that you can choose to ignore the caller.
Privacy is essential for deception, little else. Information is the key to protection, but only when we can trust the government.
And that brings me to my last point: we need a government we trust (incl. police, etc.) for my sort of philosophy to work; we need politicians who will protect us, and police who will serve us. But if we have that - if we know that we wont be illegally abused by Ashcroft and his cronies, then we have nothing to fear in providing our information to them. If I knew the cops weren't masturbating to the camera pointed in my bedroom window, I'd have very little problem having sex in front of it. As I've said, you've nothing to hide if you've done nothing wrong.
I hate to reply twice, but I want to just add a quick point: why on earth are you buying and consuming food/drugs/alcohol that you know are bad for you, unless you're willing to deal with the consequences? An adult who purchases ho-hos has decided that the consequences (increased fat/calories, and the subsequent results) are acceptable, and thats fine. However, that impacts the business decisions of insurance companies, and rightfully so. If I go in for insurance, I _want_ them to know my eating and exercise habits, because I'm proud of having a healthy lifestyle, and feel that I deserve cheaper insurance since I'm dramatically less likely to need service. Life's tough, so if you cant deal with the consequences of actions, dont undertake those actions. Eat a peice of fruit, for pete's sake. (I'm not, of course, suggesting that LetterJ is the one eating the ho-hos, I'm using the rhetorical "you" in the above paragraph).
(a) You provided no information for the debate, so you're a troll. Leave. (b) You're too cowardly to attach your names to your comment. Since there can be no fear of reprisal, this means your cowardice reflects a lack of conviction to your ideas. Because of this, you're irrelevent.
a) Why, exactly, do you feel the need to insult someone with vulgarity? All it does is make you look ignorant (since you couldn't express your thoughts without vulgarity) and remind everyone else why your thoughts are irrelevent. b) I'm not doing anything illegal, whatsoever. I'd be curious as to where you acquired information to the contrary, since it would clearly be false. c) I'm not a troll. I provided relevent comments as part of a discussion. You, on the other hand, only provided an insult. That means, by definition, that _you_ are a troll, and not I.
"If they tie this stuff together, your indication that you don't smoke combined with your carton a week purchasing of cigarettes will result in an increase in premiums. " So are you saying that the LYING is what will increase your premiums? Insurance companies and other companies have a right to adjust their hiring and sales policies based on this sort of info. Why should an insurance company have to provide for you if you are smoking, despite your claims to the contrary?
The truth is, with your game running at 1600x1200, anti-aliasing isn't going to do much for you anyway. At that level, the pixel jaggies can become unnoticable.
The book was far better...besides, the movie is worth seeing if just for the scene where the three of them go nuts on the hippy.