In fact this logic can be applied to each person on an individual basis - we strip them of all of their belongings for the benefit of the rest.
What? Please stay on target.
so what gives us the right to choose death for a child to be?
What gives you the right to demand that society should pay for that child, if you know that the parents can not? You have a typical Western take on matters: we're a rich society so we can afford these extra children. That's just not true in many places.
My point is that you have to consider the entire picture, unpleasant as that might be, not just the parts that trip your pleasure center. In the case of unwanted babies, it would make more sense to just prevent them from being conceived. But some people's "moral compass" makes that unacceptable as well.
But my mother is vegged out in a home with Alzheimer's.
That's unfortunate: don't have it in my family (we tend to run more on the diabetic line) but my previous girlfriend took care of Altzheimer's cases, and I know how hard it is (for the family as well as the patient.) I also know how downright irritating it is when someone (who probably has no personal stake in the outcome) decides that the process of developing a treatment is against his "morals", and wishes to force his belief system on everyone (yes, George W. Bush, I'm talking about you, and others like you.) It really pisses me off, that to some people a useless blob of non-viable tissue is worth more than a functioning, contributing member of society. That embryo is of no use to anyone and is not suffering. The human beings who will suffer and die before their time, because of progress delayed by drain-bamaged quasi-religious Luddites incapable of seeing the bigger picture, ought to counted here. But I'm not seeing it.
I may look forward to the same.
Then again, you might not. Don't borrow trouble, and there are some things you can do that might help avoid it. Actually using your brain is one of them. Would that the people opposing this research would use theirs.
It's because I think life is precious and if someone without any special circumstances winds up pregnant then that fetus should be allowed the chance to grow to term.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that, when you get right down to it, life isn't all that precious. For most of the world, it's dirt cheap in fact. Let's drop the pretense that we care about a clump of tissue that has no possibility of ever being born, or that we really give a flying fuck about the unborn foetus of someone we've never met and couldn't care less about. You may think those are very important to you, but I guarantee that neither of those is as important to you as you yourself, or someone who is close to you. They shouldn't be, if you have your priorities straight.
The reason that it's important to consider life at all stages is far more pragmatic, and you alluded to that. If we, as a society, begin to accept that life is cheap, that life isn't worth as much as we've convinced ourselves that it is, well, it may not be an embryo or a foetus. It may very well be us, and I prefer to err on the side of caution. So, a respect for human life is important, even if only from a purely selfish perspective.
Now, having said that, I will say that your example of requiring pregnancies to continue to term regardless of whether the parents want the child is too simplistic as well. It's easy to say, "life is precious, preserve it at all costs" but one should also take into account what the child's life is going to be like, whether in fact a given society can even afford it. These are legitimately complex issues, involving a large measure of cost-benefit analysis, as cold-blooded as that can be sometimes. If you truly wish to do the most good for the most people, you have to do what is right, not just what feels right. That's very difficult to achieve for many people, because two are often diametrically opposed. As the Bishop said, "Man is a rationalizing animal, and requires training to become a rational one." Most of us never truly learn to think, because that might require painful re-evaluation of our most cherished attitudes.
If we decide that stem-cell research is too morally repugnant to be allowed, well, we have to accept a couple of things. One: other countries point-blank will not see it the same way, and two: even if they did, there will be a cost in human life if we do not realize any potential treatments. That's why you have to be able to make reasonably dispassionate judgments based upon some actual facts, or at least logical extrapolation based on fact, rather than simply offering an unthinking Yes or No. Furthermore, you have to be prepared to change your thinking if the facts warrant it.
And in the U.S. at least, I can say with some certainty that we're really not very good at that. Thinking with our heads, I mean... we're damn good at knee-jerk reactions.
Sounds like a sci-fi movie where we grow clones for replacement parts. And then the clones escape and swap places with the primary who in-turn gets harvested because no one can tell the difference. Ya, I know we're only talking about embryos at the moment, but that's what sci-fi is for: messing with your head and making you think.
Actually, in practice that would probably be unworkable: it's not easy to keep an entire human body in an induced coma indefinitely without problems. My guess is that individual parts would be grown to order as needed. Unless, of course, we perfect brain transplants, with the idea being to grown an entire new body for ourselves.
You're right, that was weird, but nevertheless one of the more interesting posts I've encountered lately. I am glad that you recognize clinical depression as a real malady, and that you survived it intact. I'm even more pleased that you got out of that cult and got on with your life.
Personally I've always thought the Church of Scientology was a crock (having read enough of Hubbard's work to realize what he was all about.) I've had a few friends were who Scientologists over the years: they appeared perfectly normal until you got them on the subject of their "religion" (and I use the term very loosely.) I'm one of those people who is immune to proselytization, but that sure didn't stop them from trying. I think you're right though: many organizations go completely off the beam when their founders die off or retire: whatever vision that individual had gets lost pretty quickly in the ensuing power vacuum. I suspect that's what happened with Scientology's leadership. I mean, as wacky as L. Ron was, it does seem like some real headcases took over.
Please don't joke about anti-depressants. They have saved my life. A buddy of mine didn't get this kind of help and he is not here anymore. Your brain is a chemical machine. It needs the right mixture in proper balance to function properly and some of us just don't have that without some help. If that is addiction, so be it. At this point I'd rather not be dead.
I don't joke about those drugs, or clinical depression either. As I mention in another post above, I get very irritated when people claim that the condition either a. doesn't exist or is b. treatable by jogging, yoga, fruits and vegetables or something else equally ridiculous. Tom Cruise and the rest of the Scientologist crowd love to make claims like that: they should be up on charges the next time some gullible depressive kills himself because he didn't think he had a problem.
I don't consider the fact that the medical profession often prescribes these drugs indiscriminately or inappropriately to mean that the condition they are intended to treat doesn't exist. If you're "addicted" to anti-depressants in order to have a normal life, you're no more addicted than a diabetic is to his insulin, a heart patient to his cardizem. You need the drug in order to live, and I applaud you for doing the right thing.
People who suffer from an already made up problem like depression could probably trick themselves into believing they have any sort of issue.
Jesus H. Christ, who let the Scientologists in here.
Ordinary depression is something that all of us face at one time or another, and most of us come out of it. In spite of your claim, depression exists, and if you're suffering from clinical depression, i.e. a lack of specific neurotransmitters in your brain, those drugs can save your life.
Really, they can. Personally, I'd like to know how many people with clinical depression have committed suicide because some idiot fawning over Tom Cruise and the rest of those sociopathic fruitcakes convinced them to eat more vegetables and not get the help they needed. Sorry, buddy, but there are some things that you cannot cure on your own, some things that can't be handled by just "sucking it up" or "growing a pair" or any amount of psychotherapy. The brain is an organ, by far our most complex one, and like all others it can malfunction in ways that may require chemical intervention. If you meant to say, "depression (clinical or otherwise) is often improperly treated by the medical profession" I might agree with you. On the other hand, stating that depression doesn't exist is just wrong, and does anyone suffering from such a debilitating condition a disservice. To extend your logic, we might as well not bother treating diabetics with insulin because well, you know, those changes in blood glucose levels are just imaginary. Why is it so hard to accept that the brain may also have issues with too little or too much of certain critical compounds?
I've had to deal with the long-term effects of clinical depression in my family, and it's a terrible thing. Before the advent of antidepressants, about the only thing a physician could do was prescribe sleeping medication. That would sometimes help, because depressives are often sleep-deprived, but it's hardly a cure. Oh, lithium has been around for some time as a treatment, but the side-effects are unpleasant.
Now, I will agree, antidepressants that are prescribed carelessly are ineffective at best, dangerous at worst... but that does not mean they should never be used. Also, you seem to be comparing antidepressants to recreational drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth: a person with clinical depression who is on a properly-titrated antidepressant regime doesn't get high, doesn't get addicted to anything but feeling normal, being themselves again. That's what those drugs can do: they can give you your life back. It is not always a simple process, and a given individual may have to try multiple drugs over time to find one that works for him. I've not personally suffered from clinical depression, but like I said, I've had to deal with the consequences, and it really, really pisses me off when people who don't know what they're talking about claim "it's all in their heads."
Re:Not remotely similar to the Microsoft situation
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What Google has opted to do damages Oracle's trademark by referring to non-compatible software as Java language.
Fine, then Google can change the name to "Javoid or "Andra" or something like that.
Re:I think Google should solve this the easy way
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Block all searches for Oracle and Java on its search engine, until this issue is resolved
problem solved
Not really. Google is hardly the only search engine giant out there, and the ensuing public-relations disaster would be far worse than if Google ends up dropping Android entirely. Android is just an experiment for Google, a way to give more eyeballs access to its services (and hence advertising, which is where Google earns its revenue.) Granted, Google needs Android (or something like it) in order to continue its growth because the mobile market is enormous and growing exponentially, and it has heavy-duty competition that wants a slice. Either way, it wouldn't really be in Google's interests to try and play hardball there, especially since it would likely draw the attention of Federal regulators. I doubt they want that.
What the hell is he talking about?
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McAllister argues that Google is splintering the Java platform, just like Microsoft was doing back in the 90s, and should be held up to the same standards.
What the hell does that mean? Microsoft got sued because it failed to live up to a contract (huge surprise there.) There are no contractual issues here, so far as I'm aware (if I'm wrong someone please correct me.)
Java isn't some religious manuscript that needs to be kept "pure" so the true believers won't rise up and slay those who would adulterate it. It's a goddamn PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. If Oracle is suing Google, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Java being held to some standard (I could believe that of Sun, who held a certain vision for their progeny and a justifiable pride in their work) but is part of a some strategic plan. Matter of fact, that was Sun's strategy: keep Java consistent across all platforms so that "write once, run anywhere" would work. Do you really think that is a part of Oracle's planning? Is it even of the slightest concern?
Larry Ellison is a lot of things (I've heard appellations such as "real son of a bitch", "bastard", and "prick" applied to him on a regular basis) but he's not exactly a visionary. This is about money and access to specific markets, and trying to spin it as being about the welfare of the Java programming language is ridiculous. If I were a real conspiracy theorist I would have to wonder if one of Google's real competitors in the advertising space were behind this, but I'm not. I leave that to other posters.
but it seems like the last two or three years have seen a big decline in passion for nerdy computing, with discussion here now little different from other sites like Reddit
Yes. I'd say that the popularity of discussions about completely non-nerd-friendly, hacker-useless products like the iPhone and iPad indicates a shift in viewership. I've never owned an N900, but after reading the above comments I must say it sounds like a device that I would get something out of. I say that as a software developer, but as you point out, this is a site that's supposed to be "News for Nerds."
It is sad that some Russians cannot tell their government's propaganda from fact, and sad that some Americans have similar limited viewpoints.
Well, as shutdown -p now pointed out, Russian media is State-controlled, and people who have no other information available to them will, by and large, believe what they're told. So that takes care of why our Russian friends believe their government's anti-U.S. propaganda. We, on the other hand, have unfiltered Internet, uncensored publications and a (more or less) free press.
This prioritizing of gaming traffic would be illegal if Net Neutrality existed.
You see how seemingly "good" laws can cause unintended and harmful consequences? (Lord save me from do-gooders trying to save my soul, or impose their morals upon me.)
Well it depends. It's one thing to say, "well, we're charging you more for a higher level of service" and another to say, "we'll degrade your service until you pay more." ISPs have always offered different classes of service: whether it be speed, maximum transfer, reliability, whatever... some people are willing to pay more for some things. So, for an ISP to say "we'll reduce your latency by x-percent over our average latency" doesn't seem inherently evil, unless the ISP is deliberately slowing down everyone just to get more out of those who happen to want that.
But taking the worst example of union corruption and extrapolating it out is not fair. The union I belong to is nothing like the mobster run auto unions of the 70's and 80's.
That's by far not the worst example I could give. Believe me, it's not... I remember spending some time at Chrysler stamping plants in the early nineties. Between the rows of giant stamping machines were rows of bench seats, aligned back-to-back down the center. These were filled with people just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing. There were a few guys busy at various places, doing actual work. But the rest just sat there. Another point: as parts went down the line, to be processed by each machine, they had to be carried by people from the output of one press to the input of the next. No automation at all: I was told it was because the union wouldn't allow it.
Then one day one a line shut down (one of the presses had a malfunction.) I figured that all those guys would leap into action and get it fixed. Wishful thinking on my part: they just sat there. One guy opened an eye, said something like "Number 3 ain't running" and went back to sleep. Eventually another guy got up and went to a control panel and flipped a couple of switches, and then went back to his seat. Union members who could not be fired according to contract, but who did nothing for their pay. And not just one or two... many. So it's not hard to see how even a large, multi-billion-dollar corporation can get in trouble with an abusive union.
Contrast that to a Ford plant where I installed some similar monitoring equipment. The problem there was that they were used to an older system (which didn't actually work, which is why they were breaking multi-million-dollar dies) and really didn't want anything with a "computer" in
it because they believed it would cost them more jobs.
However, there were no supernumeraries there, not like in the Chrysler plant, as a matter of fact I was surprised how few people it took to operate that giant plant. Everything was robotic: parts were fed from machine to machine by computer controlled arms with pneumatic grippers and literally thrown through the air from one robot to the next. Way cool stuff.
However, one day I got a call saying there was a "problem" with the monitoring system (the thing was built into a seven-foot NEMA-12 enclosure, so it was pretty durable.) We found two squarish holes in the unit, front to back. Turned out that someone had "accidentally" run a forklift's tines into the cabinet, right through the rack mount processor. Accident my ass. So there were union issues there as well.
So we fixed it. Next time we came back, we found that management had welded steel girders around it to fend off any more forklift attacks. We also found a note inside on top of the monitor, it said "locks don't work". The lock worked fine: the bastards had picked it. It was a warning: "We can still fuck you up."
Then, after all that, it turned out that the system did work well and nobody's job got lost (somebody was hired to maintain the system and to process the data) and we became friends. But it was a lot harder than it had to be. So yeah, I'm not a huge fan of manufacturing union shops.
To be fair I did point out that there are well-managed unions out there: I wasn't trying to slam every union in existence. I just haven't seen any examples of that in education or manufacturing, that's all.
Well, I'd say Germany has become a responsible citizen, but Russia... I wouldn't count Russia out just yet. Putin, from where I sit, would like nothing more than to re-establish the old Soviet Empire. How that would play out today, with China on the world scene the way it is is anyone's guess.
I think the problem with the United States today is that we did earn some respect during World War II. Our Congress, unfortunately, has squandered that good will in the decades since. In any event, we still do a lot of good things around the world, but nobody wants to talk about those anymore.
Also, a lot of people who claim "I'm a Russian and I hate America"
Well, one thing I have noticed about Russians (and this is just my own experience talking) is that they have little respect for any form of government, ours or the one they grew up under. And, actually, they're not wrong either case.
Slashdot Mirror
so he's clearly delusional. Why listen to him in that case?
Well ... crazy people often have a certain entertainment value.
In fact this logic can be applied to each person on an individual basis - we strip them of all of their belongings for the benefit of the rest.
What? Please stay on target.
so what gives us the right to choose death for a child to be?
What gives you the right to demand that society should pay for that child, if you know that the parents can not? You have a typical Western take on matters: we're a rich society so we can afford these extra children. That's just not true in many places.
My point is that you have to consider the entire picture, unpleasant as that might be, not just the parts that trip your pleasure center. In the case of unwanted babies, it would make more sense to just prevent them from being conceived. But some people's "moral compass" makes that unacceptable as well.
But my mother is vegged out in a home with Alzheimer's.
That's unfortunate: don't have it in my family (we tend to run more on the diabetic line) but my previous girlfriend took care of Altzheimer's cases, and I know how hard it is (for the family as well as the patient.) I also know how downright irritating it is when someone (who probably has no personal stake in the outcome) decides that the process of developing a treatment is against his "morals", and wishes to force his belief system on everyone (yes, George W. Bush, I'm talking about you, and others like you.) It really pisses me off, that to some people a useless blob of non-viable tissue is worth more than a functioning, contributing member of society. That embryo is of no use to anyone and is not suffering. The human beings who will suffer and die before their time, because of progress delayed by drain-bamaged quasi-religious Luddites incapable of seeing the bigger picture, ought to counted here. But I'm not seeing it.
I may look forward to the same.
Then again, you might not. Don't borrow trouble, and there are some things you can do that might help avoid it. Actually using your brain is one of them. Would that the people opposing this research would use theirs.
Not to worry, the reset of the world can still do embryonic research.
I don't know ... are you sure resetting the world is a good idea? Sometimes these things don't come back up after you reboot them.
arguing that NIH guidelines breach the Dickey-Wicker strictures.
I see they've found themselves in a bit of a dickey-wicket, eh, what?
It's because I think life is precious and if someone without any special circumstances winds up pregnant then that fetus should be allowed the chance to grow to term.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that, when you get right down to it, life isn't all that precious. For most of the world, it's dirt cheap in fact. Let's drop the pretense that we care about a clump of tissue that has no possibility of ever being born, or that we really give a flying fuck about the unborn foetus of someone we've never met and couldn't care less about. You may think those are very important to you, but I guarantee that neither of those is as important to you as you yourself, or someone who is close to you. They shouldn't be, if you have your priorities straight.
... we're damn good at knee-jerk reactions.
The reason that it's important to consider life at all stages is far more pragmatic, and you alluded to that. If we, as a society, begin to accept that life is cheap, that life isn't worth as much as we've convinced ourselves that it is, well, it may not be an embryo or a foetus. It may very well be us, and I prefer to err on the side of caution. So, a respect for human life is important, even if only from a purely selfish perspective.
Now, having said that, I will say that your example of requiring pregnancies to continue to term regardless of whether the parents want the child is too simplistic as well. It's easy to say, "life is precious, preserve it at all costs" but one should also take into account what the child's life is going to be like, whether in fact a given society can even afford it. These are legitimately complex issues, involving a large measure of cost-benefit analysis, as cold-blooded as that can be sometimes. If you truly wish to do the most good for the most people, you have to do what is right, not just what feels right. That's very difficult to achieve for many people, because two are often diametrically opposed. As the Bishop said, "Man is a rationalizing animal, and requires training to become a rational one." Most of us never truly learn to think, because that might require painful re-evaluation of our most cherished attitudes.
If we decide that stem-cell research is too morally repugnant to be allowed, well, we have to accept a couple of things. One: other countries point-blank will not see it the same way, and two: even if they did, there will be a cost in human life if we do not realize any potential treatments. That's why you have to be able to make reasonably dispassionate judgments based upon some actual facts, or at least logical extrapolation based on fact, rather than simply offering an unthinking Yes or No. Furthermore, you have to be prepared to change your thinking if the facts warrant it.
And in the U.S. at least, I can say with some certainty that we're really not very good at that. Thinking with our heads, I mean
Sounds like a sci-fi movie where we grow clones for replacement parts. And then the clones escape and swap places with the primary who in-turn gets harvested because no one can tell the difference. Ya, I know we're only talking about embryos at the moment, but that's what sci-fi is for: messing with your head and making you think.
Actually, in practice that would probably be unworkable: it's not easy to keep an entire human body in an induced coma indefinitely without problems. My guess is that individual parts would be grown to order as needed. Unless, of course, we perfect brain transplants, with the idea being to grown an entire new body for ourselves.
Weirdly enough
You're right, that was weird, but nevertheless one of the more interesting posts I've encountered lately. I am glad that you recognize clinical depression as a real malady, and that you survived it intact. I'm even more pleased that you got out of that cult and got on with your life.
Personally I've always thought the Church of Scientology was a crock (having read enough of Hubbard's work to realize what he was all about.) I've had a few friends were who Scientologists over the years: they appeared perfectly normal until you got them on the subject of their "religion" (and I use the term very loosely.) I'm one of those people who is immune to proselytization, but that sure didn't stop them from trying. I think you're right though: many organizations go completely off the beam when their founders die off or retire: whatever vision that individual had gets lost pretty quickly in the ensuing power vacuum. I suspect that's what happened with Scientology's leadership. I mean, as wacky as L. Ron was, it does seem like some real headcases took over.
Fuck you, asshole.
My sentiments exactly.
President Whitmore: "Why the hell wasn't I told about this place?"
Albert Nimzicki: "Two words, Mr. President: plausible deniability.'"
I'm sure Google has checked with people who are
I'm sure Google Legal has numerous top-flight IP lawyers on staff.
Please don't joke about anti-depressants. They have saved my life. A buddy of mine didn't get this kind of help and he is not here anymore. Your brain is a chemical machine. It needs the right mixture in proper balance to function properly and some of us just don't have that without some help. If that is addiction, so be it. At this point I'd rather not be dead.
I don't joke about those drugs, or clinical depression either. As I mention in another post above, I get very irritated when people claim that the condition either a. doesn't exist or is b. treatable by jogging, yoga, fruits and vegetables or something else equally ridiculous. Tom Cruise and the rest of the Scientologist crowd love to make claims like that: they should be up on charges the next time some gullible depressive kills himself because he didn't think he had a problem.
I don't consider the fact that the medical profession often prescribes these drugs indiscriminately or inappropriately to mean that the condition they are intended to treat doesn't exist. If you're "addicted" to anti-depressants in order to have a normal life, you're no more addicted than a diabetic is to his insulin, a heart patient to his cardizem. You need the drug in order to live, and I applaud you for doing the right thing.
People who suffer from an already made up problem like depression could probably trick themselves into believing they have any sort of issue.
Jesus H. Christ, who let the Scientologists in here.
... but that does not mean they should never be used. Also, you seem to be comparing antidepressants to recreational drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth: a person with clinical depression who is on a properly-titrated antidepressant regime doesn't get high, doesn't get addicted to anything but feeling normal, being themselves again. That's what those drugs can do: they can give you your life back. It is not always a simple process, and a given individual may have to try multiple drugs over time to find one that works for him. I've not personally suffered from clinical depression, but like I said, I've had to deal with the consequences, and it really, really pisses me off when people who don't know what they're talking about claim "it's all in their heads."
Ordinary depression is something that all of us face at one time or another, and most of us come out of it. In spite of your claim, depression exists, and if you're suffering from clinical depression, i.e. a lack of specific neurotransmitters in your brain, those drugs can save your life.
Really, they can. Personally, I'd like to know how many people with clinical depression have committed suicide because some idiot fawning over Tom Cruise and the rest of those sociopathic fruitcakes convinced them to eat more vegetables and not get the help they needed. Sorry, buddy, but there are some things that you cannot cure on your own, some things that can't be handled by just "sucking it up" or "growing a pair" or any amount of psychotherapy. The brain is an organ, by far our most complex one, and like all others it can malfunction in ways that may require chemical intervention. If you meant to say, "depression (clinical or otherwise) is often improperly treated by the medical profession" I might agree with you. On the other hand, stating that depression doesn't exist is just wrong, and does anyone suffering from such a debilitating condition a disservice. To extend your logic, we might as well not bother treating diabetics with insulin because well, you know, those changes in blood glucose levels are just imaginary. Why is it so hard to accept that the brain may also have issues with too little or too much of certain critical compounds?
I've had to deal with the long-term effects of clinical depression in my family, and it's a terrible thing. Before the advent of antidepressants, about the only thing a physician could do was prescribe sleeping medication. That would sometimes help, because depressives are often sleep-deprived, but it's hardly a cure. Oh, lithium has been around for some time as a treatment, but the side-effects are unpleasant.
Now, I will agree, antidepressants that are prescribed carelessly are ineffective at best, dangerous at worst
What Google has opted to do damages Oracle's trademark by referring to non-compatible software as Java language.
Fine, then Google can change the name to "Javoid or "Andra" or something like that.
Block all searches for Oracle and Java on its search engine, until this issue is resolved
problem solved
Not really. Google is hardly the only search engine giant out there, and the ensuing public-relations disaster would be far worse than if Google ends up dropping Android entirely. Android is just an experiment for Google, a way to give more eyeballs access to its services (and hence advertising, which is where Google earns its revenue.) Granted, Google needs Android (or something like it) in order to continue its growth because the mobile market is enormous and growing exponentially, and it has heavy-duty competition that wants a slice. Either way, it wouldn't really be in Google's interests to try and play hardball there, especially since it would likely draw the attention of Federal regulators. I doubt they want that.
McAllister argues that Google is splintering the Java platform, just like Microsoft was doing back in the 90s, and should be held up to the same standards.
What the hell does that mean? Microsoft got sued because it failed to live up to a contract (huge surprise there.) There are no contractual issues here, so far as I'm aware (if I'm wrong someone please correct me.)
Java isn't some religious manuscript that needs to be kept "pure" so the true believers won't rise up and slay those who would adulterate it. It's a goddamn PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. If Oracle is suing Google, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Java being held to some standard (I could believe that of Sun, who held a certain vision for their progeny and a justifiable pride in their work) but is part of a some strategic plan. Matter of fact, that was Sun's strategy: keep Java consistent across all platforms so that "write once, run anywhere" would work. Do you really think that is a part of Oracle's planning? Is it even of the slightest concern?
Larry Ellison is a lot of things (I've heard appellations such as "real son of a bitch", "bastard", and "prick" applied to him on a regular basis) but he's not exactly a visionary. This is about money and access to specific markets, and trying to spin it as being about the welfare of the Java programming language is ridiculous. If I were a real conspiracy theorist I would have to wonder if one of Google's real competitors in the advertising space were behind this, but I'm not. I leave that to other posters.
but it seems like the last two or three years have seen a big decline in passion for nerdy computing, with discussion here now little different from other sites like Reddit
Yes. I'd say that the popularity of discussions about completely non-nerd-friendly, hacker-useless products like the iPhone and iPad indicates a shift in viewership. I've never owned an N900, but after reading the above comments I must say it sounds like a device that I would get something out of. I say that as a software developer, but as you point out, this is a site that's supposed to be "News for Nerds."
European Union provides 4-5 times more resources to peace keeping that US does. Why is that?
Maybe because the last two World Wars started there, were fought there, and it should be Europe's responsibility to keep it from happening again?
It is sad that some Russians cannot tell their government's propaganda from fact, and sad that some Americans have similar limited viewpoints.
Well, as shutdown -p now pointed out, Russian media is State-controlled, and people who have no other information available to them will, by and large, believe what they're told. So that takes care of why our Russian friends believe their government's anti-U.S. propaganda. We, on the other hand, have unfiltered Internet, uncensored publications and a (more or less) free press.
What's our excuse?
The extra level of detail that this provides potentially indicates who the user is, where they are looking and how they are feeling.
Phone: I noticed that you've been watching that blonde over there, and you appear to be sad. Would you like a list of local escort services?
This prioritizing of gaming traffic would be illegal if Net Neutrality existed.
You see how seemingly "good" laws can cause unintended and harmful consequences? (Lord save me from do-gooders trying to save my soul, or impose their morals upon me.)
Well it depends. It's one thing to say, "well, we're charging you more for a higher level of service" and another to say, "we'll degrade your service until you pay more." ISPs have always offered different classes of service: whether it be speed, maximum transfer, reliability, whatever ... some people are willing to pay more for some things. So, for an ISP to say "we'll reduce your latency by x-percent over our average latency" doesn't seem inherently evil, unless the ISP is deliberately slowing down everyone just to get more out of those who happen to want that.
"Ubuntu protects you from malware in the same way that a Geo protects you from carjackers." -AC
I gotta remember that one.
But taking the worst example of union corruption and extrapolating it out is not fair. The union I belong to is nothing like the mobster run auto unions of the 70's and 80's.
That's by far not the worst example I could give. Believe me, it's not ... I remember spending some time at Chrysler stamping plants in the early nineties. Between the rows of giant stamping machines were rows of bench seats, aligned back-to-back down the center. These were filled with people just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing. There were a few guys busy at various places, doing actual work. But the rest just sat there. Another point: as parts went down the line, to be processed by each machine, they had to be carried by people from the output of one press to the input of the next. No automation at all: I was told it was because the union wouldn't allow it.
... many. So it's not hard to see how even a large, multi-billion-dollar corporation can get in trouble with an abusive union.
Then one day one a line shut down (one of the presses had a malfunction.) I figured that all those guys would leap into action and get it fixed. Wishful thinking on my part: they just sat there. One guy opened an eye, said something like "Number 3 ain't running" and went back to sleep. Eventually another guy got up and went to a control panel and flipped a couple of switches, and then went back to his seat. Union members who could not be fired according to contract, but who did nothing for their pay. And not just one or two
Contrast that to a Ford plant where I installed some similar monitoring equipment. The problem there was that they were used to an older system (which didn't actually work, which is why they were breaking multi-million-dollar dies) and really didn't want anything with a "computer" in it because they believed it would cost them more jobs.
However, there were no supernumeraries there, not like in the Chrysler plant, as a matter of fact I was surprised how few people it took to operate that giant plant. Everything was robotic: parts were fed from machine to machine by computer controlled arms with pneumatic grippers and literally thrown through the air from one robot to the next. Way cool stuff.
However, one day I got a call saying there was a "problem" with the monitoring system (the thing was built into a seven-foot NEMA-12 enclosure, so it was pretty durable.) We found two squarish holes in the unit, front to back. Turned out that someone had "accidentally" run a forklift's tines into the cabinet, right through the rack mount processor. Accident my ass. So there were union issues there as well.
So we fixed it. Next time we came back, we found that management had welded steel girders around it to fend off any more forklift attacks. We also found a note inside on top of the monitor, it said "locks don't work". The lock worked fine: the bastards had picked it. It was a warning: "We can still fuck you up."
Then, after all that, it turned out that the system did work well and nobody's job got lost (somebody was hired to maintain the system and to process the data) and we became friends. But it was a lot harder than it had to be. So yeah, I'm not a huge fan of manufacturing union shops.
To be fair I did point out that there are well-managed unions out there: I wasn't trying to slam every union in existence. I just haven't seen any examples of that in education or manufacturing, that's all.
and now keeps both Germany and the USSR in check
Well, I'd say Germany has become a responsible citizen, but Russia ... I wouldn't count Russia out just yet. Putin, from where I sit, would like nothing more than to re-establish the old Soviet Empire. How that would play out today, with China on the world scene the way it is is anyone's guess.
I think the problem with the United States today is that we did earn some respect during World War II. Our Congress, unfortunately, has squandered that good will in the decades since. In any event, we still do a lot of good things around the world, but nobody wants to talk about those anymore.
Also, a lot of people who claim "I'm a Russian and I hate America"
Well, one thing I have noticed about Russians (and this is just my own experience talking) is that they have little respect for any form of government, ours or the one they grew up under. And, actually, they're not wrong either case.