That is, there's a bunch of states on those continents that united, and hey, why don't we just make that the name.
Yes, and after some 240+ years... the name stuck. There are more important issues in the world that what Americans choose to call themselves. Get over it.
You're making a real good argument about the tolerance and non-violence of atheists.
I just don't think it's the one you want to be making.
Your only reply to a statement of faith are personal insults. You disgust me.
You're welcome. And I made precisely the statement that I was intending to make. It was not intended as a personal insult (that you took it as such was predictable and not particularly interesting.) In fact, I rather succinctly stated the major problem with faith as I see it: a frequently-manifested inability to make distinctions between what is believed to be true, and what is true. Worse, the usual method for resolving that dissonance is to ignore reality, and if necessary force others to ignore it as well.
Now, if I were the type to be offended by someone else's criticism of my belief system (I'm not, actually... being very much on the outside I see little practical difference between religions other than variations in dogma and degrees of intolerance of other religions) I certainly would take offense to your complete and immediate repudiation of my worldview. Your "obvious truths" are not at all obvious to many people: you would do well to remember that. We tend to have more evidence on our side as well, which makes a position such as yours less tenable with each passing decade. But, no matter: people should be free to believe as they wish. For me to have the freedom to not believe, you must have the freedom to do the opposite.
Silly stories aside (and I'm not questioning the utility of Scripture as a pattern for living: the GP did that) the fact is, you have faith. You believe in that for which there is no evidence, that by definition cannot be rationally investigated by scientific inquiry... and that's fine so far as it goes. That's entirely your business. It is not, however, the only way to perceive our shared reality, nor is it the most valid in light of current knowledge. My fiancee, for example, is Catholic, but has no problem accepting that. She believes in her God, and knows that I do not. We get along just fine, because we both realize that honest love and caring transcend such differences, and are a hell of a lot harder to find.
Yet, I've encountered many women along the way who were not so tolerant: either I convert, somehow "find {insert favored deity here}", or I'm not good enough for them. Some of my more religious friends are convinced (and have no problem telling me) that I'm unquestionably destined for a short ride to Hell when I finally assume room temperature. Not because I'm a bad person, but because I don't have a certain mindset.
My fiancee sees it differently (she's African by birth, not American, so maybe that explains it, I don't know): she believes that I'll find my way to a better place because it only matters if you live your life the right way. And I try: my life has been more "moral" by Christian standards than one Hell of a lot of regular churchgoers. Mostly because I don't have an organized religion to help me rationalize my hypocrisy. This is it, I have one chance to do it right. Still and all, if I'm wrong about God... I certainly hope she's right!
As my father said to me once, "I'm simply satisfied with a more mechanistic view of the Universe." That sums up my belief system in a nutshell, such as it is.
I guess this nut didn't fall too far from the tree after all.
And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.
So are to assume that you a. have had the same girlfriend for the past 14 years, b. have not had a girlfriend for the past 14 years, or c. are dating women 14 years younger than you?
A metal wire every 15 centimeter seems a bit ridiculous.
What? Window screen wire is substantially smaller than that... you could make an efficient Faraday cage by nailing it to some two-by-fours. Heck, if you require complete coverage (you know, in case some of those sneaky RF waves make it through the clearly-visible holes) just make it out of tinfoil. In fact, you could even make it into a piece of headgear.
how about you stop calling them "silly stories" and accept that those of us with a belief structure and a membership in a Church (in my case The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) believe that they are a valuable tool for guidance in how to live our lives today and we won't make fun of you for not believing what we see to be obvious truth.
Sure, if you'll promise to learn the difference between Truth... and fact.
How is what they are doing any different than ingesting the flesh and blood of christ in church.
WELL, as Captain Kirk once said: "there's no accounting for taste"... but different or not they're both pretty messed up. Seriously. Some people check their brains at the door and forget them on the way out. Matter of fact, I have quite a collection in my living room closet, the last batch having been left by a contingent of Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't really know what to do with the things, I mean, they really don't work very well and take up a lot of space. Still, they were important to someone once, and I'd feel bad just throwing them out.
Finally, if I have to listen to people complain about second hand smoke so much that I feel like a goddamned leppar then why can't I complain even the least little bit about electromagnetic radiation?
Nobody's saying you can't complain. It's just unlikely that we'll pay much attention when you're so obviously off the deep end, and especially if you keep spelling "leper" like that.
The french prefer to be called franÃais. You insensitive brit-descendant!
I know, but I also knew that Slashdot wouldn't render the special characters correctly. So I settled for "French".
Re:Not in "hardware business," won't sell routers
on
Google Router Rumors
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· Score: 1
Personally, I would love to buy a PC-based Google router.
Well, there are a number of PC-based dedicated router packages out there (Smoothwall and IPCop come to mind.) They're pretty decent if you don't need tremendous throughput (and if you do, you shouldn't be looking at a PC-based solution anyways, probably.)
Stop mixing patents and copyrights together, It's making people confused. They are completely different, and while the media industry sure likes the copyright system, they have nothing to do with patents.
Yeppers, no patents ever existed on media formats and player technology. You could sell your own homebrew blu-ray player tomorrow and Sony would wish you the best of luck. Name idea: Homeblue. That one is free.
I think you misunderstood the GP. He wasn't saying that big media has nothing to do with patents, but that copyright has nothing to do with patents. Pipatron's point was perfectly valid and entirely correct. So was yours, for that matter.
Homeblue... not bad. Of course, now we're talking trademark law, which is yet another legal subsystem involved with "intellectual property."
No argument, but to be fair, we're not discussing whether a particular successful woman deserves her fame and fortune (or not.) This thread is really about whether or not they are well-known outside their countries of origin. I've never heard of Angela Merkel other than in passing, though as an American I've very familiar with J.K. Rowling and her works. Actually, I've watched some interviews with her... seemed very down to earth.
USian is accurate. American is not. America is a large continent that includes countries like Canada and Mexico.
Incorrect. The continent of North America includes Canada and Mexico. America is... well, America. Says so right in the name: The United States of America. So yes, America it is. I rather imagine you're not from the U.S.: if so, who do you think you are attempting to define the proper appellation for us? That would be like me insisting that people from France are Francians. Now, that might make sense on the surface, but as it happens they prefer to be called French. Who am I to say otherwise?
Furthermore, I guarantee you that Canadians do not consider themselves Americans (although they are certainly North Americans.) Don't believe me? Ask one.
Now, I'm not entirely sure about our friends from the South, who seem to have a rather schizoid view of citizenship these days. But that's a conversation for another time.
When will Americans stop confusing their country with the whole planet?
And when will unreasonable, uninformed people like you (who likely has never set foot in America) stop bitching about a common figure of speech. If you don't know someone's language well enough to understand basic colloquialisms, just shut the fuck up. You successfully made yourself out to be an idiot. The GP wasn't claiming that Oprah is so incredibly powerful that she tops the U.N. in influence, just that's she's very influential within his sphere of knowledge. And she is. Furthermore, if the best you can do is to complain about a common expression in American English, you really need to just go away, or get a clue, or something.
Seriously, less people than you think give a damn about what goes on in your shitty country. Much, much less.
Good point... and do you really think that we give one single, flying fuck about whatever pesthole you come from? Why would you think we care what you (or anyone else, for that matter) thinks about us? Why should we? A couple hundred million Americans have been continuously vilified by vocal assholes like yourself, over actions taken by a very few people at the top of our power structure. Actions that, I might add, are generally very unpopular among Americans in general (perhaps it escaped your attention that our last President has the lowest popularity rating in U.S. history.) I can tell right off that if I said that "all people in {your country} are stupid dumb motherfuckers and that {your country} is a land of pestilence and disease}", you would get all bent out of shape. Yet you have no problem making similar statements about my country. Look, dick, when you start spewing negative generalizations about an entire population you really show yourself to be, well... a dick. I mean, why pick on us? Why not state (with the same air of authority you exuded in your original post) that all Russians are worthless alcoholics, or that all Chinese men have small penises?
Goddamn trolls. Really, I shouldn't feed them but sometimes it's just so hard to restrain myself.
An interesting workaround for companies in that situation we all know it the USian patent system is broken and hopefully will get rebuilt sensibly in the near future, the patent in question is so broad it should never have been granted.
Please stop saying "USian". American will do nicely, thank you.
Overbroad patents are a direct consequence of the USPTO's stance that due diligence on their part is not required, and that it's perfectly okay to let interested parties sort matters out in court later. That's most definitely not okay, though, since that wastes absolutely incredible amounts of time and money, and keeps new products off the market.
Slashdot Mirror
That is, there's a bunch of states on those continents that united, and hey, why don't we just make that the name.
Yes, and after some 240+ years ... the name stuck. There are more important issues in the world that what Americans choose to call themselves. Get over it.
Now you're just being pedantical.
No, just expressing minor irritation.
The Beetles' music was digitized a couple decades ago, when they released it on CD. AAD, if you remember that.
The Beetles as a group haven't 'gone digital', though. I think that's what they're getting at.
I know ... but to me "digitalize" is a lot like "interger".
You're making a real good argument about the tolerance and non-violence of atheists.
I just don't think it's the one you want to be making.
Your only reply to a statement of faith are personal insults. You disgust me.
You're welcome. And I made precisely the statement that I was intending to make. It was not intended as a personal insult (that you took it as such was predictable and not particularly interesting.) In fact, I rather succinctly stated the major problem with faith as I see it: a frequently-manifested inability to make distinctions between what is believed to be true, and what is true. Worse, the usual method for resolving that dissonance is to ignore reality, and if necessary force others to ignore it as well.
... being very much on the outside I see little practical difference between religions other than variations in dogma and degrees of intolerance of other religions) I certainly would take offense to your complete and immediate repudiation of my worldview. Your "obvious truths" are not at all obvious to many people: you would do well to remember that. We tend to have more evidence on our side as well, which makes a position such as yours less tenable with each passing decade. But, no matter: people should be free to believe as they wish. For me to have the freedom to not believe, you must have the freedom to do the opposite.
... and that's fine so far as it goes. That's entirely your business. It is not, however, the only way to perceive our shared reality, nor is it the most valid in light of current knowledge. My fiancee, for example, is Catholic, but has no problem accepting that. She believes in her God, and knows that I do not. We get along just fine, because we both realize that honest love and caring transcend such differences, and are a hell of a lot harder to find.
... I certainly hope she's right!
Now, if I were the type to be offended by someone else's criticism of my belief system (I'm not, actually
Silly stories aside (and I'm not questioning the utility of Scripture as a pattern for living: the GP did that) the fact is, you have faith. You believe in that for which there is no evidence, that by definition cannot be rationally investigated by scientific inquiry
Yet, I've encountered many women along the way who were not so tolerant: either I convert, somehow "find {insert favored deity here}", or I'm not good enough for them. Some of my more religious friends are convinced (and have no problem telling me) that I'm unquestionably destined for a short ride to Hell when I finally assume room temperature. Not because I'm a bad person, but because I don't have a certain mindset.
My fiancee sees it differently (she's African by birth, not American, so maybe that explains it, I don't know): she believes that I'll find my way to a better place because it only matters if you live your life the right way. And I try: my life has been more "moral" by Christian standards than one Hell of a lot of regular churchgoers. Mostly because I don't have an organized religion to help me rationalize my hypocrisy. This is it, I have one chance to do it right. Still and all, if I'm wrong about God
As my father said to me once, "I'm simply satisfied with a more mechanistic view of the Universe." That sums up my belief system in a nutshell, such as it is.
I guess this nut didn't fall too far from the tree after all.
And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.
So are to assume that you a. have had the same girlfriend for the past 14 years, b. have not had a girlfriend for the past 14 years, or c. are dating women 14 years younger than you?
For my part, I'd only have a problem with "b."
It's DIGITIZE.
A metal wire every 15 centimeter seems a bit ridiculous.
What? Window screen wire is substantially smaller than that ... you could make an efficient Faraday cage by nailing it to some two-by-fours. Heck, if you require complete coverage (you know, in case some of those sneaky RF waves make it through the clearly-visible holes) just make it out of tinfoil. In fact, you could even make it into a piece of headgear.
how about you stop calling them "silly stories" and accept that those of us with a belief structure and a membership in a Church (in my case The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) believe that they are a valuable tool for guidance in how to live our lives today and we won't make fun of you for not believing what we see to be obvious truth.
Sure, if you'll promise to learn the difference between Truth ... and fact.
> Christians actually have a purpose
Here's someone who didn't hear about the closing of the Coliseum...
Love, Nero. ;-)
Funniest thing I've read all day. Thanks for that.
LOL
The idiots who spent their time getting blazed out of their minds are NOT who we have to thank for modern science. You are *kidding* yourself.
Perhaps he just has a lot of faith in his powers of suggestion.
More likely he just did a little too much acid at Woodstock.
How is what they are doing any different than ingesting the flesh and blood of christ in church.
WELL, as Captain Kirk once said: "there's no accounting for taste" ... but different or not they're both pretty messed up. Seriously. Some people check their brains at the door and forget them on the way out. Matter of fact, I have quite a collection in my living room closet, the last batch having been left by a contingent of Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't really know what to do with the things, I mean, they really don't work very well and take up a lot of space. Still, they were important to someone once, and I'd feel bad just throwing them out.
Finally, if I have to listen to people complain about second hand smoke so much that I feel like a goddamned leppar then why can't I complain even the least little bit about electromagnetic radiation?
Nobody's saying you can't complain. It's just unlikely that we'll pay much attention when you're so obviously off the deep end, and especially if you keep spelling "leper" like that.
The french prefer to be called franÃais. You insensitive brit-descendant!
I know, but I also knew that Slashdot wouldn't render the special characters correctly. So I settled for "French".
Personally, I would love to buy a PC-based Google router.
Well, there are a number of PC-based dedicated router packages out there (Smoothwall and IPCop come to mind.) They're pretty decent if you don't need tremendous throughput (and if you do, you shouldn't be looking at a PC-based solution anyways, probably.)
I wasn't referring to those facts... I was referring to the other ones. You know, the truthy ones like the Law of Gravity, the Big Bang, Piltdown Man.
If nothing else, Colbert will be remembered for his contribution of "Truthiness" to our lexicon.
Stop mixing patents and copyrights together, It's making people confused. They are completely different, and while the media industry sure likes the copyright system, they have nothing to do with patents.
Yeppers, no patents ever existed on media formats and player technology. You could sell your own homebrew blu-ray player tomorrow and Sony would wish you the best of luck. Name idea: Homeblue. That one is free.
I think you misunderstood the GP. He wasn't saying that big media has nothing to do with patents, but that copyright has nothing to do with patents. Pipatron's point was perfectly valid and entirely correct. So was yours, for that matter.
... not bad. Of course, now we're talking trademark law, which is yet another legal subsystem involved with "intellectual property."
Homeblue
Sorry, but K Rowling deserves her wealth.
No argument, but to be fair, we're not discussing whether a particular successful woman deserves her fame and fortune (or not.) This thread is really about whether or not they are well-known outside their countries of origin. I've never heard of Angela Merkel other than in passing, though as an American I've very familiar with J.K. Rowling and her works. Actually, I've watched some interviews with her ... seemed very down to earth.
"less people than you"
Do you mean "fewer people"?
Honestly, I don't think he has any idea what he means.
USian is accurate. American is not. America is a large continent that includes countries like Canada and Mexico.
Incorrect. The continent of North America includes Canada and Mexico. America is ... well, America. Says so right in the name: The United States of America. So yes, America it is. I rather imagine you're not from the U.S.: if so, who do you think you are attempting to define the proper appellation for us? That would be like me insisting that people from France are Francians. Now, that might make sense on the surface, but as it happens they prefer to be called French. Who am I to say otherwise?
Furthermore, I guarantee you that Canadians do not consider themselves Americans (although they are certainly North Americans.) Don't believe me? Ask one.
Now, I'm not entirely sure about our friends from the South, who seem to have a rather schizoid view of citizenship these days. But that's a conversation for another time.
That's mighty funny. The music in the ads for Twang could be Beach Boy's "good vibrations":D
That would be funny! Do it, and put it up on Youtube.
I don't think anyone else got the joke though.
When will Americans stop confusing their country with the whole planet?
And when will unreasonable, uninformed people like you (who likely has never set foot in America) stop bitching about a common figure of speech. If you don't know someone's language well enough to understand basic colloquialisms, just shut the fuck up. You successfully made yourself out to be an idiot. The GP wasn't claiming that Oprah is so incredibly powerful that she tops the U.N. in influence, just that's she's very influential within his sphere of knowledge. And she is. Furthermore, if the best you can do is to complain about a common expression in American English, you really need to just go away, or get a clue, or something.
Seriously, less people than you think give a damn about what goes on in your shitty country. Much, much less.
Good point ... and do you really think that we give one single, flying fuck about whatever pesthole you come from? Why would you think we care what you (or anyone else, for that matter) thinks about us? Why should we? A couple hundred million Americans have been continuously vilified by vocal assholes like yourself, over actions taken by a very few people at the top of our power structure. Actions that, I might add, are generally very unpopular among Americans in general (perhaps it escaped your attention that our last President has the lowest popularity rating in U.S. history.) I can tell right off that if I said that "all people in {your country} are stupid dumb motherfuckers and that {your country} is a land of pestilence and disease}", you would get all bent out of shape. Yet you have no problem making similar statements about my country. Look, dick, when you start spewing negative generalizations about an entire population you really show yourself to be, well ... a dick. I mean, why pick on us? Why not state (with the same air of authority you exuded in your original post) that all Russians are worthless alcoholics, or that all Chinese men have small penises?
Goddamn trolls. Really, I shouldn't feed them but sometimes it's just so hard to restrain myself.
An interesting workaround for companies in that situation we all know it the USian patent system is broken and hopefully will get rebuilt sensibly in the near future, the patent in question is so broad it should never have been granted.
Please stop saying "USian". American will do nicely, thank you.
Overbroad patents are a direct consequence of the USPTO's stance that due diligence on their part is not required, and that it's perfectly okay to let interested parties sort matters out in court later. That's most definitely not okay, though, since that wastes absolutely incredible amounts of time and money, and keeps new products off the market.
...says Mister ScrewMaster.
That's Master ScrewMaster to you, buddy.
He is pro-crapology. After all, DRM is crap.
There. Fixed it for you.
I was trying to add a small degree of subtlety to the proceedings.
You can't go all "24" on someone just because.
That's a great turn of phrase. I'm sure Jack Bauer would get a kick out of it.
Between that and this pick, will all the Slashdot Obama koolaid drinkers who thought he was supposedly pro-tech please stand up and be heard now!
He is pro-technology. After all, DRM is tech.