Do you think we should continue our entirely justified military presence in Iraq instead of running away like a bunch of cowards?
I get annoyed when the candidates don't answer the question, but the questions are often asked with a bias and are always surrounded by the context of the controversy. (Why else bother asking?) A simple 'yes' or 'no' will result in a huge amount of assumptions being made beyond what you actually said, and if you're running for president, you can't afford to say screw the stupid assumptions most of the viewers will make if I give a straight-forward answer'.
Those of you in Europe wonder why you need the United States and/or Russia? Maybe because those of you in Europe couldn't stop Hitler yourselves?
Umm...yeah, sixty-odd years ago. I think the political climate has changed a wee bit since then. Germany is not going to invade France and England (plus the UK and France have nukes now). Iran's a problem, but one completely different from Hitler. Whether the old Europe could handle Hitler is irrelevant. Try again.
I say horsepuckey. If you're bright enough to be using Firefox instead of IE, you should be bright enough to know how to configure it in a secure manner.
If you think you have to be 'bright' or computer literate to use Firefox, you're nuts. There are people who think that blue 'e' is the Internet and there are people who can hack the kernel. But there's a whole continuum of people in between who know how to install a program, but know nothing about security (and yes, that's a huge problem) and never touch the configuration screen of their newly-installed program.
I used to think this. I used to think a bunch of civilians with guns could never stand up to our highly-trained, well-equipped army with those tanks and bombs and whatnot. I figured that pro-gun rights argument had been obsolete for a hundred years.
Then we invaded Iraq. I was wrong. If you want to oppress the American population, need to convince them to let you. Bigger guns won't do it. Your first idea is the only winning strategy.
_willingly_ giving up privacy data is the key. willingly implies knowlingly. do you _know_ what kind of data google collects from all its services and how it uses it to track you? if you don't _know_, then you're not willingly giving up your privacy, you're being conned into giving up your data.
I certainly know what information I'm giving them. What I don't know is how much they store and how effectively they piece it all together. Why do I need to know what Google is doing with my data? I gave them my data, and so long as they don't violate an agreement I made with them, they aren't conning me.
The United States got by fine without an income tax until 1913
Prior to 1913, having the number one workforce in the world required that most of us could read. That's not enough any more.
Prior to 1913, being safe from enemy armies meant having an ocean on two sides. That's not enough any more (though being on reasonably good terms with all the big guys might be).
Prior to 1913, life expectancy at birth was under 50 years. (47 years in 1900 says Wikipedia) That's not good enough.
We've come a long way, and for all our new problems, I don't want to go back.
If we got rid of the electoral college, only the votes of people in high population states would count.
Collectively, yes, the 33 871 648 Californians would count more than the 515 004 Wyomingans, but you're basically saying that if we eliminate states as a voting entity, the high-population states have more powerful as a voting entity. But they're not a voting entity anymore.
As an individual voter, my vote (NC) would count the same as a single Californian. Right now, the chance of my vote swinging the election is a lot smaller than one Ohioan's vote. I'm not North Carolina; I'm Luca Masters. I want a bigger voice for me--specifically, I want exactly the same vote as an individual resident of Californian or Wyomingan. If my home state now has less power because the majority no longer gets to decide whom my representative votes for President, that's fine.
The Republic system has many benefits, but we don't seem to be operating as one anymore, and I don't see a big benefit to retaining a Republic-based voting system. Giving a state a bigger voice is not the same as (or as important as) giving each individual voter in said state a bigger voice (or, rather, the same voice as each other individual).
If it is simple majority of votes, who gives a s$$t about Alaska voters, there are probably more undecided's in Chicago than all the voters in Alaska (and certainly more in the greater metropolitan Chicago area).
In 2004, Bush got 61.07% of the Alaskan popular vote to Kerry's 35.52%. In 2000, Bush got 58.62% to Gore's 27.67%. Sure seems to me that with the current system, a Republican candidate can completely ignore Alaska and it won't make a lick of difference--they're ahead by 25-30%, and so long as that doesn't go below 0%, they get 100%. Going purely by popular vote, having 25% of Alaskans more than your opponent instead of 1% does make a lick of difference. Not a huge gulp, but a lick, and that sure seems like an improvement to me.
Forget claims about 'encryption' (it's a unique ID who cares what it "means")
Unique means no one else has the same one at the same time, not that it never changes. (He bravely states having not RTFA.) How about SHA-256(your_secret_uid . today's_date) or some such thing? (Of course, that just means you have to re-identify the person once a day, but they can make it change as often as desired.)
Right, but, see, when I get email, nothing happens (though for most people it will chime/speak once). When I get a phone call, the phone makes a loud ringing noise until I answer it or the person gives up.
I've always hated phones for that. Mobiles tend to have better ways of getting your attention (by which I mean vibrate, not ringtones), but still, why isn't it considered horribly rude to use a telephone for anything but an emergency? IM and email clients play a quick sound, and that's fine. But ringing over and over and over and over and over until I finally get sick of the noise, drop what I'm doing and answer only to find it's Bob who just felt like chatting to kill some time? Nofuckingwai.
The Giant Impact theory for the formation of the Moon was accepted by much of the community over the course of a single meeting, I've been told by a participant.
Some work was done by Thompson and Stevenson in 1983 about the formation of moonlets in the disk of debris that formed around Earth after the impact. However, in general the theory languished until 1984 when an international meeting was organized in Kona, Hawaii, about the origin of the moon. At that meeting, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the leading hypothesis and has remained in that role ever since. Dr. Michael Drake, director of the University of Arizona's Planetary Science Department, recently described that meeting as perhaps the most successful in the history of planetary science.
That's very cool.
My economics professor told us essentially the same thing about the Coase theorem. Allegedly, Coase presented it to a group of economists all of whom rejected the theory right off, but by the time they'd left, he'd convinced every last one of them. (I, however, think it needs a few qualifications.)
...AC posts really don't matter, and nobody takes them seriously.
Nobody? Believe it or not, some of evaluate arguments based on their content rather than the person who makes them. But that's just us elitists interested in finding the truth rather than 'winning' arguments. Bah, philosophers and scientists with their silly 'truth' and 'logic'. Who needs it?
Situation one: I pull out my gun and shoot you in the head. You die. Bwahahaha! I'm evil!
Situation two: I pull out my gun and try to shoot you in the head, but a wormhole appears and sucks away the bullet. You survive. I'm not evil?
The only difference in the two situations were things beyond my control (and that I couldn't predict). Punishing me or not punishing me for stuff I had know way of controlling or knowing would happen makes no sense. Only my choices and what I expect/intend for them to do is relevant in judging me. Letting me go because a wormhole sucked away the bullet I meant to send into your head is no different than punishing me because a wormhole sucked away the brakes of my car right as you stepped in front of it: not my fault.
Obviously, if I get lucky and my bullet doesn't kill you, your family can't sue for damages, but as far as criminal law goes, punishing people less (or not at all) simply because their attempt failed is stupid and wrong. (Except to the extent that successfully committing the crime is evidence that I made the attempt, but that's an epistemological problem, which is OT.)
Of course, copyright infringement shouldn't be a criminal matter, so it should just be awarding damages (if anything) and attempted piracy shouldn't be punished as it causes no damage. But when it comes to actual crime, 'attempted' is the only sensible way to go: hold me accountable for my choices, not things I had nothing to do with.
If locating the information on a hardcopy cheat sheet is faster than locating it using Google, either you have the slowest dial-up ever (or no IC--in that case, sure), you're the slowest typist ever (how long does it take to type a search query?), or you've memorised the exact location of every item on the cheat sheet, in which case you don't need it anymore: you have it memorised.
I use reference books, textbooks, &c a lot, but not for a quick lookup of a command I need right now.
I hear about 100 complaints from people about all sorts of crap but no one is ever offering an actual alternative.... Want to stop the Real ID act? Have a proposal about what to do instead of it? So far I haven't heard any real options other than "just keep doing the same shit that gives anyone a visa, and any illegal immegrant a ID." Oh wait that's fine by some people.
You're right. My only alternative idea to reducing freedoms is 'leave things the way they are until we come up with a good idea'. I wish I had that good idea right now, but at least I'm opposed to making things worse. 'You don't have an idea on how to improve things so don't complain about our idea to make things worse' seems like a really, really weak position to me.
So, we've posted a hundred complaints about Real ID. If they're legitimate, it's important that we consider them. When the proponents of an idea object to critical analysis, that's a strong sign that it's a bad idea.
I used to tell people not to write down their passwords, but after dealing with people losing their passwords all the time, I changed my tune. I think this makes a good point. There are some passwords I won't write down, but if I can carry hundreds of dollars, keys to my house and car, and credit cards with over a total credit line over 10 000USD in my pocket.
Preferably, one would just write down a hint, of course. And not on a sticky-note on the monitor.
Merck did not pay one single dime for the education of those scientists. The US taxpayers did.
Actually, I suspect most of the scientists took out student loans that they are now paying off using their Merck salaries. Compared to the cost of K-12 schooling, scholarship money, and (if they went to a public university) the government-subsidised tuition it's probably fairly small, but I'm sure it's more than a dime.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
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· Score: 1
You're right. Sorry. There was some writeup on E2 about how (except in some cases) contracts are only valid if the signers know what it says, or something to that effect, and I was thinking it was consideration. Can't find the correct writeup, though. Maybe it was my imagination.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
If you sign ANYTHING without reading it in it's entirety and modifying the thing you do not agree to, you really are a silly fool.
That's not fair! Everyone knows it's okay to distribute any data so long as it's encoded as a hex string!
Call it what it is: a decryption key. It's not okay to distribute just because 'it's a hex string'. You could encode child pornography as a hex string. It's okay to distribute (if it is) because it's just a decryption key. The format is irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think we should continue our entirely justified military presence in Iraq instead of running away like a bunch of cowards?
I get annoyed when the candidates don't answer the question, but the questions are often asked with a bias and are always surrounded by the context of the controversy. (Why else bother asking?) A simple 'yes' or 'no' will result in a huge amount of assumptions being made beyond what you actually said, and if you're running for president, you can't afford to say screw the stupid assumptions most of the viewers will make if I give a straight-forward answer'.
Umm...yeah, sixty-odd years ago. I think the political climate has changed a wee bit since then. Germany is not going to invade France and England (plus the UK and France have nukes now). Iran's a problem, but one completely different from Hitler. Whether the old Europe could handle Hitler is irrelevant. Try again.
Some people would argue that it's possible to seek to improve the world as an ends in itself.
If you think you have to be 'bright' or computer literate to use Firefox, you're nuts. There are people who think that blue 'e' is the Internet and there are people who can hack the kernel. But there's a whole continuum of people in between who know how to install a program, but know nothing about security (and yes, that's a huge problem) and never touch the configuration screen of their newly-installed program.
I used to think this. I used to think a bunch of civilians with guns could never stand up to our highly-trained, well-equipped army with those tanks and bombs and whatnot. I figured that pro-gun rights argument had been obsolete for a hundred years.
Then we invaded Iraq. I was wrong. If you want to oppress the American population, need to convince them to let you. Bigger guns won't do it. Your first idea is the only winning strategy.
Shame we're applying it here instead of Iraq.
Iraq has something to do with US national security?
Assuming I know only one person in the UK. I realise this is Slashdot, but come on. I live in the US and I probably know well over a dozen Brits.
I do if I don't make any agreements with them.
Of course, I have.
I certainly know what information I'm giving them. What I don't know is how much they store and how effectively they piece it all together. Why do I need to know what Google is doing with my data? I gave them my data, and so long as they don't violate an agreement I made with them, they aren't conning me.
Averygoodpoint,sir.Hatsofftoyou.
Prior to 1913, having the number one workforce in the world required that most of us could read. That's not enough any more.
Prior to 1913, being safe from enemy armies meant having an ocean on two sides. That's not enough any more (though being on reasonably good terms with all the big guys might be).
Prior to 1913, life expectancy at birth was under 50 years. (47 years in 1900 says Wikipedia) That's not good enough.
We've come a long way, and for all our new problems, I don't want to go back.
Collectively, yes, the 33 871 648 Californians would count more than the 515 004 Wyomingans, but you're basically saying that if we eliminate states as a voting entity, the high-population states have more powerful as a voting entity. But they're not a voting entity anymore.
As an individual voter, my vote (NC) would count the same as a single Californian. Right now, the chance of my vote swinging the election is a lot smaller than one Ohioan's vote. I'm not North Carolina; I'm Luca Masters. I want a bigger voice for me--specifically, I want exactly the same vote as an individual resident of Californian or Wyomingan. If my home state now has less power because the majority no longer gets to decide whom my representative votes for President, that's fine.
The Republic system has many benefits, but we don't seem to be operating as one anymore, and I don't see a big benefit to retaining a Republic-based voting system. Giving a state a bigger voice is not the same as (or as important as) giving each individual voter in said state a bigger voice (or, rather, the same voice as each other individual).
In 2004, Bush got 61.07% of the Alaskan popular vote to Kerry's 35.52%. In 2000, Bush got 58.62% to Gore's 27.67%. Sure seems to me that with the current system, a Republican candidate can completely ignore Alaska and it won't make a lick of difference--they're ahead by 25-30%, and so long as that doesn't go below 0%, they get 100%. Going purely by popular vote, having 25% of Alaskans more than your opponent instead of 1% does make a lick of difference. Not a huge gulp, but a lick, and that sure seems like an improvement to me.
Unique means no one else has the same one at the same time, not that it never changes. (He bravely states having not RTFA.) How about SHA-256(your_secret_uid . today's_date) or some such thing? (Of course, that just means you have to re-identify the person once a day, but they can make it change as often as desired.)
Right, but, see, when I get email, nothing happens (though for most people it will chime/speak once). When I get a phone call, the phone makes a loud ringing noise until I answer it or the person gives up.
I've always hated phones for that. Mobiles tend to have better ways of getting your attention (by which I mean vibrate, not ringtones), but still, why isn't it considered horribly rude to use a telephone for anything but an emergency? IM and email clients play a quick sound, and that's fine. But ringing over and over and over and over and over until I finally get sick of the noise, drop what I'm doing and answer only to find it's Bob who just felt like chatting to kill some time? Nofuckingwai.
A quick search reveals that is the case:
That's very cool.
My economics professor told us essentially the same thing about the Coase theorem. Allegedly, Coase presented it to a group of economists all of whom rejected the theory right off, but by the time they'd left, he'd convinced every last one of them. (I, however, think it needs a few qualifications.)
Nobody? Believe it or not, some of evaluate arguments based on their content rather than the person who makes them. But that's just us elitists interested in finding the truth rather than 'winning' arguments. Bah, philosophers and scientists with their silly 'truth' and 'logic'. Who needs it?
Because it's the only thing that makes sense.
Situation one: I pull out my gun and shoot you in the head. You die. Bwahahaha! I'm evil!
Situation two: I pull out my gun and try to shoot you in the head, but a wormhole appears and sucks away the bullet. You survive. I'm not evil?
The only difference in the two situations were things beyond my control (and that I couldn't predict). Punishing me or not punishing me for stuff I had know way of controlling or knowing would happen makes no sense. Only my choices and what I expect/intend for them to do is relevant in judging me. Letting me go because a wormhole sucked away the bullet I meant to send into your head is no different than punishing me because a wormhole sucked away the brakes of my car right as you stepped in front of it: not my fault.
Obviously, if I get lucky and my bullet doesn't kill you, your family can't sue for damages, but as far as criminal law goes, punishing people less (or not at all) simply because their attempt failed is stupid and wrong. (Except to the extent that successfully committing the crime is evidence that I made the attempt, but that's an epistemological problem, which is OT.)
Of course, copyright infringement shouldn't be a criminal matter, so it should just be awarding damages (if anything) and attempted piracy shouldn't be punished as it causes no damage. But when it comes to actual crime, 'attempted' is the only sensible way to go: hold me accountable for my choices, not things I had nothing to do with.
Yarr harr fiddle-dee-dee, being a pirate is all right with me! (Autoplaying Flash video warning.) LazyTown FTW!
If locating the information on a hardcopy cheat sheet is faster than locating it using Google, either you have the slowest dial-up ever (or no IC--in that case, sure), you're the slowest typist ever (how long does it take to type a search query?), or you've memorised the exact location of every item on the cheat sheet, in which case you don't need it anymore: you have it memorised.
I use reference books, textbooks, &c a lot, but not for a quick lookup of a command I need right now.
You're right. My only alternative idea to reducing freedoms is 'leave things the way they are until we come up with a good idea'. I wish I had that good idea right now, but at least I'm opposed to making things worse. 'You don't have an idea on how to improve things so don't complain about our idea to make things worse' seems like a really, really weak position to me.
So, we've posted a hundred complaints about Real ID. If they're legitimate, it's important that we consider them. When the proponents of an idea object to critical analysis, that's a strong sign that it's a bad idea.
Preferably, one would just write down a hint, of course. And not on a sticky-note on the monitor.
Actually, I suspect most of the scientists took out student loans that they are now paying off using their Merck salaries. Compared to the cost of K-12 schooling, scholarship money, and (if they went to a public university) the government-subsidised tuition it's probably fairly small, but I'm sure it's more than a dime.
You're right. Sorry. There was some writeup on E2 about how (except in some cases) contracts are only valid if the signers know what it says, or something to that effect, and I was thinking it was consideration. Can't find the correct writeup, though. Maybe it was my imagination.
I click 'I agree' ON TOSes without worrying about what they say.
That's not fair! Everyone knows it's okay to distribute any data so long as it's encoded as a hex string!
Call it what it is: a decryption key. It's not okay to distribute just because 'it's a hex string'. You could encode child pornography as a hex string. It's okay to distribute (if it is) because it's just a decryption key. The format is irrelevant.