From what I gather, this is a total misunderstanding of what Jon Stewart was trying to say. As I understood it, he was trying to say that the problem is that we refuse to have real debate. crossfire, as Jon sees it (so I think), engages in theatre, not debate. The criticism of the media is that they fake being even handed, and by doing so don't actually provide meaningful analysis. The interpretation that debate in all forms should go is way off. Debating an issue and reading the party-line propaganda are two completely different things.
As it turns out, this nation has a long history of third party influence. No, they never win the presidency (unless you count Lincoln), but they do influence politics, usually on one key issue. Prohibition, food inspection, and direct election of senators were all part of 3rd party movements. The pattern is that when a 3rd party garners enough votes, one or both of the other 2 parties steal their thunder, adopting some of their key issues. For instance, a vote for Nader in 2000 would most likely be interpreted as a vote for campaign finance reform. I'm not really sure what a vote for Nader now could be interepreted as (maybe anti-war?). A vote for the Badnarik would most likely be interpreted as a vote against the patriot act and the FCC's new censorship rules.
You might want to consider getting a degree from Northeastern (as I'm doing now). The co-op program there is supposed to be great (I just started in the Masters program, so I haven't had a chance to verify this myself). I know a lot of people who went there for undergrad and got their fulltime jobs with companies they co-oped with. As far as costs, you can pretty much borrow everything. Yeah, that's a risk (what happens if you never see the increase in wage to pay off the debt), but IMHO it's a risk worth taking.
The comparison list shows that Java doesn't have enumerated types. Thought it was worth mentioning that java will soon have enumerations in release 1.5:
so wait, I'm confused. Does this mean security cameras in convenient stores in NH are illegal? Or do you give consent to be recoreded by entering the store. Are there signs posted that you are giving this consent?
True, listening to any walkman, regardless of its price and color of headphones, in a situation where mugging is a possibility is pretty dumb. For instance, if it's midnight, and you're in a quiet, urban neighborhood, not being able to hear your surroundings puts you at a significant disadvantage. This includes any urban neighborhood, by the way, not just low-income, "scary" ones like Spanish Harlem. The same thing could happen to you on the Upper East side or in Midtown Manhattan. That said, this is only true if the attacker can hear your music. They must believe it loud enough that you won't hear them coming. Even then, running for them is very risky (what if a cop passes and sees them running at someone, rather than walking). In fact, in every mugging I've seen, including the one that I saw first hand (I was dumb, I walked too slow and was eating french fries... I might as well worn a target), the assailants walked away so that they would not draw attention to themselves when they got to the busier avenue.
From my rooftop in Spanish Harlem I have had the pleasure of witnessing a couple of muggings. From what I can tell muggers tend to prey on whomever they think is the easiest target. They generally don't go after you if you're with someone else, especially if you're two guys. They won't go after you if you look big and strong. And, no one ever seems to believe this, they will not go after you if you walk too fast. Part of mugging someone is the element of surpise and if they have to run to catch up with you, then their cover is blown. I have witnessed at least one case where I actually had the cell in my hand about to dial 911, but the person who I thought was going to be mugged, walked too quick for her would be attacker to catch up, and he gave up.
Okay, all that slightly offtopic stuff said, wearing white headphones will not get you mugged. However, if some guy on an empty street stops you and asks you if you have an ipod, and you stop walking, look at them, and respond... well that may get you mugged, as it did the victim in the story.
Most muggers won't have the ipod 12 hours after they've stolen it from you. It will already be at the closest pawn shop so they can buy drugs with the cash they god. This is not exactly a profession that's chosen rationally, but rather out of desperation. The guys who sell the drugs, now they're the ones who keep and use the ipods.
The elastic clause, Article I, section 8 of the U.S. constitution:
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
The tenth ammendment basically says that anything not covered by this clause (for instance trade that cannot be construed to be inter-state trade) is for the states to regulate. However, terrorism is clearly covered in the enumerated powers, so therefore the elastic clasuse applies to it, not the 10th ammendment.
It's there for a good reason. Every good idea leads inevitably to abuses when mandated from above.
I would change that to be every good idea has the possibility for abuse. since every possible abuse will eventually come to fruition, it is possible to say every good idea has abuses. That doesn't mean you don't continue with the good idea. For instance, I believe in putting people away for life who murder someone (I loathe capital punishment except in the absolute most extreme cases... but that's a whole other discussion). Now, this leaves the possibility for wrong convictions and putting people in jail who don't deserve it. Does that mean we shouldn't punish murderers? of course not, it just means that we should be more careful to guard against the abuses.
The Tenth Amendment explicitly states that, good idea or not, it's really none of the government's business to be meddling in things like this.
I totally disagree. Part of the problem you are discussing is that federalism is a vague concept that is hard to outline. There are too many nooks and crannies within it to be able to always decide whether something is constitutional or not. The tenth ammendment says that all powers not given to the federal government are given to the states... but the elastic cause says that any law which is neccessary and proper to the execution of the enumerated powers of the u.s. legislature is considered an enumurated power itself. Therefore, since it is within the enumerated powers to prevent foreign invasion and rebellion, which terrorism can be considered to be (one or the other that is), by u.s. legislature, then the legislature is also allowed to do everything that is not expressly prohibited by the constitution to protect against terrorism. Privacy laws are an extension of the fourth ammendment (the one that requires search warrants), but it is unclear at best whether this ammendment extends to things you don't actually possess, like your social security number or criminal record. As such, I don't think it can be argued that collection of this information by the federal government can be considered a violation of the 10th ammendment.
That said, I think having the government know so much about its citizens is inherently dangerous. There is only so much you can do to guard against abuses, and in this case those guards may not be enough. But my disagreement with it is not on constitutional grounds.
alright, I'm sorry here, but listen up all you folks who support 3rd party candidates, there are differences between republicans and democrats. I agree that the issue of personal privacy is not often one of them, but to say that there are no differences between republicans and democrats is just naive. If republicans ran the country, we would have no unemployment benefits, no abortion, a military that is twice the size it is, no state or federal funding of public schools, no welfare, capital punishment without a lengthy appeals process, no affirmative action, a debt that is 3 times at large (because republicans don't like taxing, just spending) etc. etc. I'm sure some of you agree or disagree over whether we should have these things in the first place, but to say that the republicans overall don't favor and reject a different set of goverment actions from what the democrats favor and reject is just naive. You may feel neither party favors the ideas you agree with, but that's a different issue.
I think the problem most people have is that they just don't like democracy. It has nothing to do with the intelligence of other voters, people just don't like the idea that another person could disagree with their view points. Most people are disatisfied with the government because they want to see their agenda adopted... and guess what, it never will be adopted. That's the nature of compromise in a democratic system. The reasoning is that it's better to always get some of what you want than to risk getting none of what you want. Go ahead complain because that is the only way you can get some of what you want, but don't be so arrogant as to assume that just because people have a different opinion then you that they are just mindless idiots who do whatever Fox news or NBC or tells them to.
I'm sure this has been said already, but who in their right mind would choose to call this thing MATRIX and then not expect people to get upset about it leading to some form of totalitarianism. I mean didn't any of them see the movie? This has got to be one of the stupidest marketing mistakes of all time.
Oh god, what I wouldn't give for some mod points right now to mark you as flaimbait.
But here's some more wood for the fire:
The QA guys probably did mention it, but development said it was by design and program management said they didn't have time to fix it.
Most likely the programmers didn't have any QA because they believe it to be a waste of time. After all, can't you just find the bugs during beta test?;)
This is a warning for any creator of computer programs: that software quality matters, that applications must be foolproof, and that-- whether embedded in the engine of a car, a robotic arm in a factory or a healing device in a hospital-- poorly deployed code can kill
I beg to differ. Software quality is not neccessarily that important. It depends on the application. I'm working with some very buggy software right now, but given the choice between having the features it has and waiting another year or 2 for it to reach a level that I would call stable, I will take it's current incarnation. Software quality on a machine that governs radiation matters, but it's less important in non-critical applications. Often, having a product to market faster in exchange for a decrease in quality is a worthwhile trade-off. That's why I often download alpha and beta software, because I want it now, not later, and I don't really care all that much about stability.
The lesson of Enron is "do what's legal" not "do what's honorable". If the leaders of Enron hadn't done anything illegal, the story would be the same as every other corporation.
The problem is that when people work in groups in a corporate setting they adopt new ethical standards to match their group. The ethical standard in corporations is to do whatever you can to make money. Doing things of questionable legality is just a financial risk like anything else. In order to keep corporations from doing things we don't want we have to make either the chance of getting caught or the punishment or both so high as to make it no longer financially wise. We cannot simply rely on them do what we think is ethical because the ethics within coporations are different than the ethics in the general populations.
I fail to see what the author of this letter is so worried about. If he honestly believes what he is saying, then open source software will only be produced by European students who have no costs and plenty of time. These students should fail to be able to compete with more mature developers, who needing money, work for closed-source organizations. So... what exactly is he trying to achieve by this letter, other than to be condescending?
Wow good thing I read the posts before I wrote my own... I was just about to say the same thing. The problem with letting people develop java however they want is that it allows people to develop system speciffic java amongst other things . This is exactly what Microsoft tried to do, and why Sun sued them. Think about it, if Java had been open sourced to begin with, then Sun wouldn't have been able to sue Microsoft, and we'd probably have a whole body of Java code out there that only runs on Windows. As of now we have guarantee, if it's written in Java it will run anywhere.
So I assume this would be one of those cases where uses of Freenet would really benefit. I mean you have 1 file that everyone wants, no searching necessary.
Anybody know what the key for it is?
Actually, I think a form of this was used at Microsoft a while back. I remember interviewing there (when I was young and confused) and being told by the interviewer that if you enter something like "This fucking thing won't work" into the help system, it automatically gives you the number for tech support. The idea is that if you're that unhappy you should really be speaking to a liver person, not navigating through the help system.
Then again, I never actually confirmed this, and apparently it's not true for word XP.
Slashdot Mirror
From what I gather, this is a total misunderstanding of what Jon Stewart was trying to say. As I understood it, he was trying to say that the problem is that we refuse to have real debate. crossfire, as Jon sees it (so I think), engages in theatre, not debate. The criticism of the media is that they fake being even handed, and by doing so don't actually provide meaningful analysis. The interpretation that debate in all forms should go is way off. Debating an issue and reading the party-line propaganda are two completely different things.
As it turns out, this nation has a long history of third party influence. No, they never win the presidency (unless you count Lincoln), but they do influence politics, usually on one key issue. Prohibition, food inspection, and direct election of senators were all part of 3rd party movements. The pattern is that when a 3rd party garners enough votes, one or both of the other 2 parties steal their thunder, adopting some of their key issues. For instance, a vote for Nader in 2000 would most likely be interpreted as a vote for campaign finance reform. I'm not really sure what a vote for Nader now could be interepreted as (maybe anti-war?). A vote for the Badnarik would most likely be interpreted as a vote against the patriot act and the FCC's new censorship rules.
You might want to consider getting a degree from Northeastern (as I'm doing now). The co-op program there is supposed to be great (I just started in the Masters program, so I haven't had a chance to verify this myself). I know a lot of people who went there for undergrad and got their fulltime jobs with companies they co-oped with. As far as costs, you can pretty much borrow everything. Yeah, that's a risk (what happens if you never see the increase in wage to pay off the debt), but IMHO it's a risk worth taking.
java 1.5 spec
so wait, I'm confused. Does this mean security cameras in convenient stores in NH are illegal? Or do you give consent to be recoreded by entering the store. Are there signs posted that you are giving this consent?
True, listening to any walkman, regardless of its price and color of headphones, in a situation where mugging is a possibility is pretty dumb. For instance, if it's midnight, and you're in a quiet, urban neighborhood, not being able to hear your surroundings puts you at a significant disadvantage. This includes any urban neighborhood, by the way, not just low-income, "scary" ones like Spanish Harlem. The same thing could happen to you on the Upper East side or in Midtown Manhattan. That said, this is only true if the attacker can hear your music. They must believe it loud enough that you won't hear them coming. Even then, running for them is very risky (what if a cop passes and sees them running at someone, rather than walking). In fact, in every mugging I've seen, including the one that I saw first hand (I was dumb, I walked too slow and was eating french fries... I might as well worn a target), the assailants walked away so that they would not draw attention to themselves when they got to the busier avenue.
Okay, all that slightly offtopic stuff said, wearing white headphones will not get you mugged. However, if some guy on an empty street stops you and asks you if you have an ipod, and you stop walking, look at them, and respond... well that may get you mugged, as it did the victim in the story.
Most muggers won't have the ipod 12 hours after they've stolen it from you. It will already be at the closest pawn shop so they can buy drugs with the cash they god. This is not exactly a profession that's chosen rationally, but rather out of desperation. The guys who sell the drugs, now they're the ones who keep and use the ipods.
I'd just like to point out, that if computers came with cup holders we wouldn't have to use our cd trays this way, so it's really a design flaw.
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
The tenth ammendment basically says that anything not covered by this clause (for instance trade that cannot be construed to be inter-state trade) is for the states to regulate. However, terrorism is clearly covered in the enumerated powers, so therefore the elastic clasuse applies to it, not the 10th ammendment.
I would change that to be every good idea has the possibility for abuse. since every possible abuse will eventually come to fruition, it is possible to say every good idea has abuses. That doesn't mean you don't continue with the good idea. For instance, I believe in putting people away for life who murder someone (I loathe capital punishment except in the absolute most extreme cases... but that's a whole other discussion). Now, this leaves the possibility for wrong convictions and putting people in jail who don't deserve it. Does that mean we shouldn't punish murderers? of course not, it just means that we should be more careful to guard against the abuses.
The Tenth Amendment explicitly states that, good idea or not, it's really none of the government's business to be meddling in things like this.
I totally disagree. Part of the problem you are discussing is that federalism is a vague concept that is hard to outline. There are too many nooks and crannies within it to be able to always decide whether something is constitutional or not. The tenth ammendment says that all powers not given to the federal government are given to the states... but the elastic cause says that any law which is neccessary and proper to the execution of the enumerated powers of the u.s. legislature is considered an enumurated power itself. Therefore, since it is within the enumerated powers to prevent foreign invasion and rebellion, which terrorism can be considered to be (one or the other that is), by u.s. legislature, then the legislature is also allowed to do everything that is not expressly prohibited by the constitution to protect against terrorism. Privacy laws are an extension of the fourth ammendment (the one that requires search warrants), but it is unclear at best whether this ammendment extends to things you don't actually possess, like your social security number or criminal record. As such, I don't think it can be argued that collection of this information by the federal government can be considered a violation of the 10th ammendment.
That said, I think having the government know so much about its citizens is inherently dangerous. There is only so much you can do to guard against abuses, and in this case those guards may not be enough. But my disagreement with it is not on constitutional grounds.
alright, I'm sorry here, but listen up all you folks who support 3rd party candidates, there are differences between republicans and democrats. I agree that the issue of personal privacy is not often one of them, but to say that there are no differences between republicans and democrats is just naive. If republicans ran the country, we would have no unemployment benefits, no abortion, a military that is twice the size it is, no state or federal funding of public schools, no welfare, capital punishment without a lengthy appeals process, no affirmative action, a debt that is 3 times at large (because republicans don't like taxing, just spending) etc. etc. I'm sure some of you agree or disagree over whether we should have these things in the first place, but to say that the republicans overall don't favor and reject a different set of goverment actions from what the democrats favor and reject is just naive. You may feel neither party favors the ideas you agree with, but that's a different issue.
I think the problem most people have is that they just don't like democracy. It has nothing to do with the intelligence of other voters, people just don't like the idea that another person could disagree with their view points. Most people are disatisfied with the government because they want to see their agenda adopted... and guess what, it never will be adopted. That's the nature of compromise in a democratic system. The reasoning is that it's better to always get some of what you want than to risk getting none of what you want. Go ahead complain because that is the only way you can get some of what you want, but don't be so arrogant as to assume that just because people have a different opinion then you that they are just mindless idiots who do whatever Fox news or NBC or tells them to.
I'm sure this has been said already, but who in their right mind would choose to call this thing MATRIX and then not expect people to get upset about it leading to some form of totalitarianism. I mean didn't any of them see the movie? This has got to be one of the stupidest marketing mistakes of all time.
But here's some more wood for the fire:
The QA guys probably did mention it, but development said it was by design and program management said they didn't have time to fix it.
Most likely the programmers didn't have any QA because they believe it to be a waste of time. After all, can't you just find the bugs during beta test? ;)
I beg to differ. Software quality is not neccessarily that important. It depends on the application. I'm working with some very buggy software right now, but given the choice between having the features it has and waiting another year or 2 for it to reach a level that I would call stable, I will take it's current incarnation. Software quality on a machine that governs radiation matters, but it's less important in non-critical applications. Often, having a product to market faster in exchange for a decrease in quality is a worthwhile trade-off. That's why I often download alpha and beta software, because I want it now, not later, and I don't really care all that much about stability.
The problem is that when people work in groups in a corporate setting they adopt new ethical standards to match their group. The ethical standard in corporations is to do whatever you can to make money. Doing things of questionable legality is just a financial risk like anything else. In order to keep corporations from doing things we don't want we have to make either the chance of getting caught or the punishment or both so high as to make it no longer financially wise. We cannot simply rely on them do what we think is ethical because the ethics within coporations are different than the ethics in the general populations.
I fail to see what the author of this letter is so worried about. If he honestly believes what he is saying, then open source software will only be produced by European students who have no costs and plenty of time. These students should fail to be able to compete with more mature developers, who needing money, work for closed-source organizations. So... what exactly is he trying to achieve by this letter, other than to be condescending?
ahhh.... you obviously have never worked on the same floor as HR. ;)
Wow good thing I read the posts before I wrote my own... I was just about to say the same thing. The problem with letting people develop java however they want is that it allows people to develop system speciffic java amongst other things . This is exactly what Microsoft tried to do, and why Sun sued them. Think about it, if Java had been open sourced to begin with, then Sun wouldn't have been able to sue Microsoft, and we'd probably have a whole body of Java code out there that only runs on Windows. As of now we have guarantee, if it's written in Java it will run anywhere.
woops should've used that preview button, meant "Aerosmith" not "Aresomith".
So when these launch do they play Aresomith?
I love the implicit commentary here that Slashdot readers are men and therefore do not own blow dryers.
So I assume this would be one of those cases where uses of Freenet would really benefit. I mean you have 1 file that everyone wants, no searching necessary. Anybody know what the key for it is?
Does that mean we shouldn't be discussing it here?
Actually, I think a form of this was used at Microsoft a while back. I remember interviewing there (when I was young and confused) and being told by the interviewer that if you enter something like "This fucking thing won't work" into the help system, it automatically gives you the number for tech support. The idea is that if you're that unhappy you should really be speaking to a liver person, not navigating through the help system. Then again, I never actually confirmed this, and apparently it's not true for word XP.