Yeah, sure, because everyone who works for the government is a lazy, paper-pushing, middle-aged unionized bureaucrat who spends half their working day in the bathroom, instead of being highly-motivated, well-trained professionals with the most well-financed intelligence programs in the world.
No, she is an idiot for judging thing she does not comprehend. if she does not comprehend a case, she has no business going further until she does have a basic understanding of it. Quite the contrary. It is exactly her business to judge the case -- she's the judge. And furthermore, contrary to all the ranting from high-riding idiots on slashdot, she does understand the technology. In ruling that RAM is a document, all she is saying is that they need to store the information in that 'document' in a more permanent format, for use in the trial.
Well, what you describe I wouldn't define as loyalty. Yes, of course you want to help out your friends and family before other people, especially when they are threatened... I guess some people would call that 'loyalty', but that makes it sound like some kind of virtuous act that somebody would rather not do, like eat your vegetables, do some exercise, buy organic milk, or slow down on the drinking. I would say that people rather enjoy helping their friend and families, on a nuerochemical level, so it's rather enlightened self-interest, than some kind of virtue in the medieval sense. People genuinely enjoy helping other people.
Suppose you fall in the river and are going to drown. Nowhere in the US does a person have a responsibility to save a person from harm (barring a few limited exceptions, such as if the person created/escalated the dangerous situation or has some sort of "special relationship" with you such as doctor-patient or husband-wife that is applicable). However, should we not value the loyalty a friend displays in jumping in to rescue you simply because we are a nation of laws? I would jump in that river to save a total stranger. Just because it's the right thing to do. Whether or not that's loyalty, I don't know. I don't think it is, but I can't tell you what the proper name is. Common humanity? A person doesn't need to have a relationship with me in order for me to try to save them from drowning.
The only time when your 'loyalty' would be tested is in exactly the kind of case where we expect you to be 'disloyal' in a rule-of-law society -- where your friend, family member, or ally is in the wrong, and you have to 'go to bat' for them. Otherwise, you're helping them all the time, because you genuinely enjoy it, and it's not in conflict with any of the other demands of society.
Do you mean loyalty, or do you mean trust or respect? I would say that those are the virtues, when earned, are the ones integral or to human society.
How would you define loyalty? I would define it as defending someone against anything that might hurt them -- even when they are in the wrong. Which is why I don't agree with it. It goes against the basic principles of fairness and rule of law.
I think loyalty is a virtue that belongs to the past, like allegiance to the King. I read your post, and I think I understand where you're coming from, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that loyalty is something that belongs to another era. We live under the rule of law, and our first allegiance should be to the law. Loyalty is a moral that is great in a society where it's my tribe against your tribe, or my King against your King, but it really goes contrary to the rule of law. Cases in point: Alberto Gonzales, the mafia, or any corrupt politician or criminal syndicate.
Of course the whole loyalty thing works out when people are loyal to an honest person. I think the problem is that the Noble Kings of Yore probably weren't as noble or just as the stories claim they were, and they were probably many more unscrupulous rulers and other characters in the court. Loyalty simply doesn't belong in a society that claims to abide by the rule of law, or provide equal opportunity for all. If your child, parent, or sibling does something wrong, you've got to turn them in.
It's in that same spirit that I'm voting Republican in the next presidential election. Do you REALLY think one party rule is going to better under Democrats? I like the idea of one party controlling the White House and the other controlling Congress. It forces people to work together. I applaud your reasoning, but there is a congressional election at the same time as the presidential election, so if you're voting Republican, you don't know that the Democrats will win the congress in 2008. It might be a likelihood, but still, it's somewhat of a risk.
On the other hand, the House of Representatives are elected every 2 years, so you have a chance to vote for the opposite party in 2010 if ti doesn't quite work out in 2008.
Focussing on an object draws the people attention to it. It's used as an artistic tool. If everything is in focus, then the public will most likely not even notice (unless they specifically check for this). Yes, focus is a tool, and if you use it all the time, it creates a mood or atmosphere for the film. Sort of like how the original matrix was in all green, to set the mood for the whole film. In another film, say, _Great Expectation_, the color green ( in objects, the color of a room, the color of a dress ) is used to highlight and communicate certain aspects of the film. I would say it all depends on how they use it and how well they pull it off.
Well, saying it comes from the phrase 'smoke break' doesn't really explain why we use the phrase 'break' at all. Okay, then, why did they call it a 'smoke break'.
My guess is that it's just the natural word for the job. 'Break' also means a pause or interruption, or the ending of a period. For instance, breakfast -- the breaking of the fast during sleep. So a break in work means a pause or interruption of the work, for coffee, cigarettes, or otherwise.
Well, from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like the internet is giving people anything other than the ability to read about their crazy beliefs on a computer screen. Will there be newer, crazier stories? Certainly. Will there be more crazy beliefs, or will it still be proportional to the population? I'm betting not. Up until some 300 years ago, nobody really very many accurate, truly abstract ideas about the universe ( such as the laws of motion, the nature of the sky, atomic theory, genetic theory, etc), aside from obvious, in-your-face things, like the sky being blue.
However, what I believe is novel about the internet is that it has the potential to become an almost-instantaneous source of accurate information. We haven't had that before. So we will have the inaccuracies -- we always have. We also will have in incredibly fast, incredibly pervasive medium for the accuracies.
Yes, they will 'learn' all those things, or at least be presented with them. Most people won't believe them, just like most don't believe any 9/11 conspiracy theories. No amount of web pages, youtube videos, or self-appointed researchers can convince most people that there was anything suspicious about 9/11. Forget about alien saucer crashes or the health benefits of battery acid.
It seems to only be a special variety of internet geek, the conspiracy theorist, who believes everything they read on the internet. Better internet saturation will probably lead to more beliefs for any conspiracy theorist, but on the whole, I can't believe your average person would turn into a conspiracist upon exposure to the internet.
If anything, exposure to more sources of shaky information will lead people to be *more* critical of media and their own beliefs.
Sorry, to tell you the truth, I don't recall what it was. Could have been cactus potting soil, but I seem to remember it being a bit more complicated than that!
Just think about what will happen to world culture, music, and programming when the OLPC project reaches critical mass, and some kid in the desert is mixing his father's zither music with chanting he downloaded from a kid in the jungle on the other side of the world.
Last year I was walking through the Home Depot. I needed an item of certain specs for a project, but I didn't know if that item even existed. I asked several employees for help, but if it didn't have a name, the thing didn't exist, as far as they were concerned. I wandered around for a little bit, wondering which isle I might find my mythical device. Then it struck me -- "I'll look it up on google!"
In retrospect, this seems astoundingly obvious. I was using my 2400 baud modem to dial-up BBSes before "The Internet", and I was asking my college classmates if they had tried Google yet for their internet searches back in '98-'99. But even though I'm relatively young and computer savvy, the information revolution has not completely saturated my mind. I'll be a foreigner who learned to speak the language late in his teen; I'll forever have an accent. I grew up in a world of libraries and card catalogs, of unhelpful adults who knew little of the subjects I wanted to learn about, and experts who couldn't answer questions that I didn't know how to pose. The world I grew up in was opaque, by default. I grew up in an information famine. If there was a weird or esoteric subject that made itself known to me somehow -- perhaps a short reference in a comic book -- I would spend days or weeks wondering about it. I would spend fruitless hours in the library trying to look it up, or getting blank stares from librarians or store owners.
But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.
Amazing things are in the pipeline. I hope I live as long as I can!
No, it does matter what the goods traded for are, even if one of those goods are promises, IOUs, paper, "book money", "currency", or all the other "material" goods (they are all valued SUBJECTIVELY), nobody will trade one thing for another thing, unless by definition they are better off wealthier for doing so. That's bullshit. Nobody is a perfectly rational actor with omniscient knowledge. You are claiming that people are never cheated, fooled, or ripped off? Sorry, I don't buy it.
If that wasn't necessarily true, why would you accept "money", or "paychecks" for you labor services? No exchange ever occurs unless it is voluntary. No voluntary exchange occurs (no matter what is it exchanged), unless that which is received is valued more than that which is given away, EVEN IF one of those things is that which you call "paper". How an actor values a good or service depends on their circumstances *at the time*. If I were dying of thirst, I wouldn't bother applying for a job to buy some water; I would search directly for water. However, in my current circumstances, I'm decently fed and watered, so I will go in to work for a paycheck, which I'm betting based on imperfect knowledge, will improve my position in the future. However, if my company goes bankrupt tomorrow, I will not finish out my two weeks, because I know the paycheck will likely be worthless. If I am unaware of the financial status of my company, I might finish out my pay period in exchange for a paycheck, the value of which I misunderstand. If the US dollar crashes, I may not go to work at all, since the money would be worthless.
Absolutely nothing has inherent objective value. Agreed.
Everything is extrinsically valued by human actors. This is a founding principle of the modern science of economics. What you speak of is what perplexed the ancient Greeks, who couldn't figure out why a diamond could be worth more than a glass of water. I misspoke. What I meant was that there are goods and services that have inherent human interests, such as food, water and clothing. The value of non-essential items derive their value, as far as human perceive them, from the value of essential items.
When people have their basic needs met, being food, water, shelter, perhaps social interaction, etc. They being to play distribution and value games where they assign values to things that don't meet their basic needs, such as paychecks or gold coins. However, when one or some of the basic needs aren't met, non-essential items tend to lose most or all of their value.
No, and I'm not trying to argue back. But as you pointed out, I was using incorrect terminology, and I thank you for the correction and the opportunity to clarify my point:)
I guess you are right -- they are trading material goods for book money -- but what I actually meant was that you are trading a material good for something with no inherent value -- paper money, book money, whatever you want to call it. I can't understand money other than it simply being an IOU, for the exchange of a good or service at some point in the future, from anyone trading in that currency. So, as poster was saying that trade is inherently fair and profitable for both sides, I argue that's only true when you are trading like materials. You can trade goods for goods, songs for songs, but when you trade materials for IOUs, I don't think that that's an inherently fair exchange.
By definition of trade, something is given away and something is received in exchange. That would be true if, for example, the US and China were trading material goods in exchange for material goods, but international trade is the exchange of material goods for paper money. It's starting to appear to me that this fractional reserve currency is basically a shell game, or musical chairs, and every so often the system crashes, with winners and losers. So it may actually be a problem if you have an actual material trade imbalance in order to play a shell game. And China is starting to look like it's holding the chips in this round of the game.
Right, but that's just 'checking for drug labs' along with 'checking for drug usage', not 'checking upstream for drug labs'. Grandparent seems to imply that there is some way you can work your way back to the drug lab once you find drug usage in a given neighborhood. That may be true; but I don't think you can do it through the water/sewer system, as the word 'upstream' seems to imply. If 'upstream' means 'up the road', that might be a better bet.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, sure, because everyone who works for the government is a lazy, paper-pushing, middle-aged unionized bureaucrat who spends half their working day in the bathroom, instead of being highly-motivated, well-trained professionals with the most well-financed intelligence programs in the world.
So she's an idiot for judging on the matters of the case, which is her job?
The only time when your 'loyalty' would be tested is in exactly the kind of case where we expect you to be 'disloyal' in a rule-of-law society -- where your friend, family member, or ally is in the wrong, and you have to 'go to bat' for them. Otherwise, you're helping them all the time, because you genuinely enjoy it, and it's not in conflict with any of the other demands of society.
So, I would still say that loyalty is outdated.
Do you mean loyalty, or do you mean trust or respect? I would say that those are the virtues, when earned, are the ones integral or to human society.
How would you define loyalty? I would define it as defending someone against anything that might hurt them -- even when they are in the wrong. Which is why I don't agree with it. It goes against the basic principles of fairness and rule of law.
I think loyalty is a virtue that belongs to the past, like allegiance to the King. I read your post, and I think I understand where you're coming from, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that loyalty is something that belongs to another era. We live under the rule of law, and our first allegiance should be to the law. Loyalty is a moral that is great in a society where it's my tribe against your tribe, or my King against your King, but it really goes contrary to the rule of law. Cases in point: Alberto Gonzales, the mafia, or any corrupt politician or criminal syndicate.
Of course the whole loyalty thing works out when people are loyal to an honest person. I think the problem is that the Noble Kings of Yore probably weren't as noble or just as the stories claim they were, and they were probably many more unscrupulous rulers and other characters in the court. Loyalty simply doesn't belong in a society that claims to abide by the rule of law, or provide equal opportunity for all. If your child, parent, or sibling does something wrong, you've got to turn them in.
On the other hand, the House of Representatives are elected every 2 years, so you have a chance to vote for the opposite party in 2010 if ti doesn't quite work out in 2008.
Well, saying it comes from the phrase 'smoke break' doesn't really explain why we use the phrase 'break' at all. Okay, then, why did they call it a 'smoke break'.
My guess is that it's just the natural word for the job. 'Break' also means a pause or interruption, or the ending of a period. For instance, breakfast -- the breaking of the fast during sleep. So a break in work means a pause or interruption of the work, for coffee, cigarettes, or otherwise.
Well, from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like the internet is giving people anything other than the ability to read about their crazy beliefs on a computer screen. Will there be newer, crazier stories? Certainly. Will there be more crazy beliefs, or will it still be proportional to the population? I'm betting not. Up until some 300 years ago, nobody really very many accurate, truly abstract ideas about the universe ( such as the laws of motion, the nature of the sky, atomic theory, genetic theory, etc), aside from obvious, in-your-face things, like the sky being blue.
However, what I believe is novel about the internet is that it has the potential to become an almost-instantaneous source of accurate information. We haven't had that before. So we will have the inaccuracies -- we always have. We also will have in incredibly fast, incredibly pervasive medium for the accuracies.
Is that why we call it taking a 'break'? ;)
Yes, they will 'learn' all those things, or at least be presented with them. Most people won't believe them, just like most don't believe any 9/11 conspiracy theories. No amount of web pages, youtube videos, or self-appointed researchers can convince most people that there was anything suspicious about 9/11. Forget about alien saucer crashes or the health benefits of battery acid.
It seems to only be a special variety of internet geek, the conspiracy theorist, who believes everything they read on the internet. Better internet saturation will probably lead to more beliefs for any conspiracy theorist, but on the whole, I can't believe your average person would turn into a conspiracist upon exposure to the internet.
If anything, exposure to more sources of shaky information will lead people to be *more* critical of media and their own beliefs.
Sorry, to tell you the truth, I don't recall what it was. Could have been cactus potting soil, but I seem to remember it being a bit more complicated than that!
Just think about what will happen to world culture, music, and programming when the OLPC project reaches critical mass, and some kid in the desert is mixing his father's zither music with chanting he downloaded from a kid in the jungle on the other side of the world.
That's wonderful news! Thanks so much :)
Last year I was walking through the Home Depot. I needed an item of certain specs for a project, but I didn't know if that item even existed. I asked several employees for help, but if it didn't have a name, the thing didn't exist, as far as they were concerned. I wandered around for a little bit, wondering which isle I might find my mythical device. Then it struck me -- "I'll look it up on google!"
In retrospect, this seems astoundingly obvious. I was using my 2400 baud modem to dial-up BBSes before "The Internet", and I was asking my college classmates if they had tried Google yet for their internet searches back in '98-'99. But even though I'm relatively young and computer savvy, the information revolution has not completely saturated my mind. I'll be a foreigner who learned to speak the language late in his teen; I'll forever have an accent. I grew up in a world of libraries and card catalogs, of unhelpful adults who knew little of the subjects I wanted to learn about, and experts who couldn't answer questions that I didn't know how to pose. The world I grew up in was opaque, by default. I grew up in an information famine. If there was a weird or esoteric subject that made itself known to me somehow -- perhaps a short reference in a comic book -- I would spend days or weeks wondering about it. I would spend fruitless hours in the library trying to look it up, or getting blank stares from librarians or store owners.
But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.
Amazing things are in the pipeline. I hope I live as long as I can!
Hey, maybe that was a technically accurate but functionally lousy translation of the Latin phrase, and it's time for it to be deprecated?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=276599&cid=203 46565
When people have their basic needs met, being food, water, shelter, perhaps social interaction, etc. They being to play distribution and value games where they assign values to things that don't meet their basic needs, such as paychecks or gold coins. However, when one or some of the basic needs aren't met, non-essential items tend to lose most or all of their value.
No, and I'm not trying to argue back. But as you pointed out, I was using incorrect terminology, and I thank you for the correction and the opportunity to clarify my point :)
I guess you are right -- they are trading material goods for book money -- but what I actually meant was that you are trading a material good for something with no inherent value -- paper money, book money, whatever you want to call it. I can't understand money other than it simply being an IOU, for the exchange of a good or service at some point in the future, from anyone trading in that currency. So, as poster was saying that trade is inherently fair and profitable for both sides, I argue that's only true when you are trading like materials. You can trade goods for goods, songs for songs, but when you trade materials for IOUs, I don't think that that's an inherently fair exchange.
Right, but that's just 'checking for drug labs' along with 'checking for drug usage', not 'checking upstream for drug labs'. Grandparent seems to imply that there is some way you can work your way back to the drug lab once you find drug usage in a given neighborhood. That may be true; but I don't think you can do it through the water/sewer system, as the word 'upstream' seems to imply. If 'upstream' means 'up the road', that might be a better bet.