Bullshit. In some later posts, I read of gangs of 15 people mugging at the same time. Applying a non-lethal charge to one of them is not going to do jack. He has 14 friends there to help him.... In five seconds, you'd be dead, if you were close enough to use that.
I can see your argument, but I don't believe that a gun is going to help you much there either: muggers are probably opportunists that will run away if anyone fights back anyhow: having a taser is probably going to make them think twice. If the attackers are serious then you're not going to stop them with a single clip of most weapons -- unless you're carrying a submachinegun. Ideally, of course, governments should be making sure that nobody has reason (or that the majority are severely punished) to mug people.
Regardless, the number of muggings seems, to me, to be unaffected by firearms ownership. I don't have the exact figures, obviously, but I'm guessing that ratio of muggings to people are the same in the UK and the USA.
Are you seriously suggesting that I refrain from walking, in my country, in my city, down the roads that my tax dollars paid,for as a solution to crime? What if they take up residence in my house? Should I just leave?
If you know that muggers are n% more likely to attack you if you walk alone down a dark alley, you would be a fool to walk alone down a dark alley. If they take up residence in your house then you'll accomplish a lot more by calling the police. Whether you have a gun or not, you'll still need to call the police. Granted it's not a pallatable solution, but when you let people take the law into their own hands then you move towards anarchy.
Weapons ownership is a basic human right
I'm guessing that it doesn't say that owning a weapon is a right to all humans -- if it did, then obviously the UK wouldn't have no-guns laws.
Also please note that you changed the issue from weapons to free speech: the issues are completely disconnected. Shooting people isn't a (legal/valid) expression of your ideas.
P.S. I just consulted the declaration of human rights and it mentions "security of person" -- that doesn't have to mean "right to hold a gun". A gun is simply a means to retaliate against someone who has/trying to violate your rights.
How dare you presume to tell me what I do and do not need.
I was talking in the "human race" sense of "you": the UK police stop various types of crime without needing to use guns. I'm sure there are many other countries who prevent crime without the need for guns.
As an aside, I live in northern ireland and it's incredibly useful to have a law against guns here: when the police raid a terrorist warehouse (or home) and find guns/ammunition/bombs/etc. then they don't need other evidence (that can be incredibly difficult and costly to obtain): they already have a basic crime that they can convict the people of (and therefore keep terrorists off our streets).
Personally, having a handgun wouldn't make me feel safer if there's the possibility of some drunkard coming up to me holding one: for me, not having the right to bear arms is a small price to pay for the significantly reduced incidence of being threatened by arms. If someone comes up to me with a knife I can run away. If someone's holding a gun then running away isn't going to do much for me.
That model still exists here in the UK -- although it's probably not very popular. My mother's a doctor and she has one corded phone that's provided by the phone company; the benefit for her is that if her phone &/ line breaks the company come around and fix it much faster (or so it appears)
Also, if no one had computers, banks wouldn't have to wory about people breaking into their computers and extorting money from them.
The problem being that guns don't have a legal use that can't be accomplished just as easily with something nonlethal (a taser, for example) or simply not walking down dark streets on your own at night.
I have a vision of tomorrow: a world without costers. A world where our tabs will be labelled "Hot", "Cold" and "Coffee". You know, if we had tubes running from the coffee tap to our mouths, we wouldn't have to waste so many coasters (or clean so many cups)
what's so impressive about this? If you have to manually mount the ipod, then the only new feature is a front-end for "cp" and "ls". Anyone care to enlighten me?
What, you mean put Bill Gates and Sam Palmisano on an island with Linux, Darl et al, arm then with assorted weapons and tell them they have 3 days to be the last man standing?
...IPv10 (IPX!)? 4 + 6... [woo lame version # advancement schemes!] then you get to put an "X" in the name and everyone upgrades faster... maybe we could even work in an XML basis; think of the interoperability!
To put hyperthreading into your car analogy: Hyperthreading is like a car that has power assisted steering. If you want, you can switch it off; you'll likely have a slightly smoother time with it on. But if you want the control (or don't trust it) then you can switch it off.
For the geek who reads posts as a stack of strings delimited by <br>, Nobody's forcing you to use hyperthreading. Use it, don't use it. Don't complain that it's a Bad Thing[tm] simply because you're being given the choice
You don't think that people in every country have a right to know what enemy militaries (i.e. any military that isn't their own) were seriously considering?
If the USA released declassified documents that the UK was thinking of invading them, would you have a problem? It's easy to have double-standards; if any other country did to America what the American government is doing to the rest of the world (demanding that Galileo be put on a frequency they can jam; invading other countries without permission from the UN) would you be pleased? Of course not!
By giving the military too much control over secrets (especially, but not exclusively, those of other countryes) you're paving the way towards a police-state.
Effective democracy simply keeps as many groups as possible squabbling so that no one can assume complete unaudited control.
fine except for the fact that your addicted to the patch
It's like using windows! Addicted. Craving for that patch that always comes later than you need it (or just doesn't give the fix that it used to...). And with each patch brings more vulnerability- you need more patches. You are weak. But patching sustains you... doesn't it?
Anyway, we do know how the brain works. It's been studied for a century and more research goes on every day. No one has ever uncovered any evidence that its anything other then a neural network. If you look at a centuries worth of scientific research, "it only makes sense".
Conjecture != fact
Many ideas that seem to be the best choice end up being the worst. Think investing in enron...
We do, in fact, know very little about the brain: we can talk about it in high-level terms but find it very difficult to express and pin those down to low-level structures and chemical releases. Researchers often have an even harder time proving their theory conclusively (mainly because going in and cutting something out of the brain causes great trauma to much of the brain: not to mention that you can't just grab someone on the street and cut bits out of his brain [although it sometimes seems that people have already done that...])
In fact, there are lots of localized, spesific parts of the brain that, if damaged do cause you to lose skills. Sure, if you knock out some of the cerebral cortex, you might be OK. But if you take out the hypothalimus (for example) you will not be able to record any new non-motor memories (a motor memory would be like learning to ride a bike or type).
Speaking (although I use this as a simplistic example, since there are two definite areas of the brain associated with speaking + listening) is an example of a slightly abstract task. The hypothalamus is hard-wired to perform functions such as bringing about vasoconstriction or vasopressin, altering metabolism, causing adrenaline to be released, etc.
The two tasks outlined above are wholly different: the hypothalamus is hard-wired to various glands that release chemicals. The Brocas area (which controls speech) talks to other parts of the brain which do the action. Since the Broca's area is composed soley of neurons connected to other neurons, theoretically any part of the brain can take over its function -- it isn't hard-wired to any other non-neurone structures in the brain.
the brains way of setting up a RAID5 system. When a few neurons die, others are their to take their place and rebuild the data best as possible.
Does this mean that a RAID5 array will start making up data off the top of its processor? If so, I think I know how SCO's legal team plans to prove their case...
And how many flight attendants will let you use it? It is my experience that they have a blanket ban on all phones. Try explaining to them that you have an aircraft mode that's safe and you're likely to find yourself unwelcome -- or facing legal action because of their ignorance.
What's this? Wireless and security in the same sentence?
Wireless and security seem to be two words that are mutually exclusive these days, it would seem: between cocky administrators not securing their wireless networks, that few networks seem to be using WEP and huge bugs in phone's implementations of bluetooth...
Know anyone who trusts WiFi? I don't. Even my university doesn't (and it isn't well known for good security practise). Useful, but slightly untrustworthy.
Common users in the UK don't use gprs (at least, none that I know) because it is slow and far too expensive: while it may be fast enough for these sorts of games, it will still stay quite expensive because service providers have significant infrastructure costs and they have to overcharge in some areas so they can be competitive in others.
In other news, look at some of the great ideas for wireless gaming that have fallen flat: namely Nokia's N-Gage. Perhaps real multiplayer gaming (and gaming communities) are just for games consoles, PCs and Macs?
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless, the number of muggings seems, to me, to be unaffected by firearms ownership. I don't have the exact figures, obviously, but I'm guessing that ratio of muggings to people are the same in the UK and the USA.
If you know that muggers are n% more likely to attack you if you walk alone down a dark alley, you would be a fool to walk alone down a dark alley.
If they take up residence in your house then you'll accomplish a lot more by calling the police. Whether you have a gun or not, you'll still need to call the police. Granted it's not a pallatable solution, but when you let people take the law into their own hands then you move towards anarchy.
I'm guessing that it doesn't say that owning a weapon is a right to all humans -- if it did, then obviously the UK wouldn't have no-guns laws.
Also please note that you changed the issue from weapons to free speech: the issues are completely disconnected. Shooting people isn't a (legal/valid) expression of your ideas.
P.S. I just consulted the declaration of human rights and it mentions "security of person" -- that doesn't have to mean "right to hold a gun". A gun is simply a means to retaliate against someone who has/trying to violate your rights.
I was talking in the "human race" sense of "you": the UK police stop various types of crime without needing to use guns. I'm sure there are many other countries who prevent crime without the need for guns.
As an aside, I live in northern ireland and it's incredibly useful to have a law against guns here: when the police raid a terrorist warehouse (or home) and find guns/ammunition/bombs/etc. then they don't need other evidence (that can be incredibly difficult and costly to obtain): they already have a basic crime that they can convict the people of (and therefore keep terrorists off our streets).
Personally, having a handgun wouldn't make me feel safer if there's the possibility of some drunkard coming up to me holding one: for me, not having the right to bear arms is a small price to pay for the significantly reduced incidence of being threatened by arms. If someone comes up to me with a knife I can run away. If someone's holding a gun then running away isn't going to do much for me.
That model still exists here in the UK -- although it's probably not very popular. My mother's a doctor and she has one corded phone that's provided by the phone company; the benefit for her is that if her phone &/ line breaks the company come around and fix it much faster (or so it appears)
The problem being that guns don't have a legal use that can't be accomplished just as easily with something nonlethal (a taser, for example) or simply not walking down dark streets on your own at night.
You simply don't need guns to stop crime
Some police here (in the UK) carry guns. Especially in Northern Ireland. If memory serves, the UK police have a MP5 modified for single-shot.
No guns, however, is an excellent idea: nobody's going to accidentally brutally shoot people in the head if they don't have a gun
Unfortunately ISPs tend not to drop non-them packets -- at least, not the ISPs in the UK that I know techs from.
They claim that it's too much work to update the list of their ips every time it changes (which, to be honest, I wouldn't think is very much)
I've never understood how the slashdot effect works: virtually nobody seems to rtfa, so the web traffic generated should be virtually null...
Unless, of course, people open the site on general principle -- and then close it?
I have a vision of tomorrow: a world without costers. A world where our tabs will be labelled "Hot", "Cold" and "Coffee". You know, if we had tubes running from the coffee tap to our mouths, we wouldn't have to waste so many coasters (or clean so many cups)
what's so impressive about this? If you have to manually mount the ipod, then the only new feature is a front-end for "cp" and "ls". Anyone care to enlighten me?
What, you mean put Bill Gates and Sam Palmisano on an island with Linux, Darl et al, arm then with assorted weapons and tell them they have 3 days to be the last man standing?
...IPv10 (IPX!)? 4 + 6... [woo lame version # advancement schemes!] then you get to put an "X" in the name and everyone upgrades faster... maybe we could even work in an XML basis; think of the interoperability!
Shrewdness != Intellect
I hate to say it, but your logic is flawed.
To put hyperthreading into your car analogy:
Hyperthreading is like a car that has power assisted steering. If you want, you can switch it off; you'll likely have a slightly smoother time with it on. But if you want the control (or don't trust it) then you can switch it off.
For the geek who reads posts as a stack of strings delimited by <br>, Nobody's forcing you to use hyperthreading. Use it, don't use it. Don't complain that it's a Bad Thing[tm] simply because you're being given the choice
...and I'm not even american! Do I get my medal now?
You don't think that people in every country have a right to know what enemy militaries (i.e. any military that isn't their own) were seriously considering?
If the USA released declassified documents that the UK was thinking of invading them, would you have a problem? It's easy to have double-standards; if any other country did to America what the American government is doing to the rest of the world (demanding that Galileo be put on a frequency they can jam; invading other countries without permission from the UN) would you be pleased? Of course not!
By giving the military too much control over secrets (especially, but not exclusively, those of other countryes) you're paving the way towards a police-state.
Effective democracy simply keeps as many groups as possible squabbling so that no one can assume complete unaudited control.
You all deserve your geek passes revoked! Either you forgot/> tags, or you do not realise:
10 Bits= $.25 100 Bits= $.50 110 Bits= $.75 1000 Bits= 1 byte
2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, 8 bits.
The numbers, of course, are in binary. For shame!
Many ideas that seem to be the best choice end up being the worst. Think investing in enron...
We do, in fact, know very little about the brain: we can talk about it in high-level terms but find it very difficult to express and pin those down to low-level structures and chemical releases. Researchers often have an even harder time proving their theory conclusively (mainly because going in and cutting something out of the brain causes great trauma to much of the brain: not to mention that you can't just grab someone on the street and cut bits out of his brain [although it sometimes seems that people have already done that...])
Speaking (although I use this as a simplistic example, since there are two definite areas of the brain associated with speaking + listening) is an example of a slightly abstract task. The hypothalamus is hard-wired to perform functions such as bringing about vasoconstriction or vasopressin, altering metabolism, causing adrenaline to be released, etc.
The two tasks outlined above are wholly different: the hypothalamus is hard-wired to various glands that release chemicals. The Brocas area (which controls speech) talks to other parts of the brain which do the action. Since the Broca's area is composed soley of neurons connected to other neurons, theoretically any part of the brain can take over its function -- it isn't hard-wired to any other non-neurone structures in the brain.
Does this mean that a RAID5 array will start making up data off the top of its processor? If so, I think I know how SCO's legal team plans to prove their case...
And how many flight attendants will let you use it? It is my experience that they have a blanket ban on all phones. Try explaining to them that you have an aircraft mode that's safe and you're likely to find yourself unwelcome -- or facing legal action because of their ignorance.
What's this? Wireless and security in the same sentence?
Wireless and security seem to be two words that are mutually exclusive these days, it would seem: between cocky administrators not securing their wireless networks, that few networks seem to be using WEP and huge bugs in phone's implementations of bluetooth...
Know anyone who trusts WiFi? I don't. Even my university doesn't (and it isn't well known for good security practise). Useful, but slightly untrustworthy.
"Darl is close" I think I can see a flash mob building more quickly than normal.
Common users in the UK don't use gprs (at least, none that I know) because it is slow and far too expensive: while it may be fast enough for these sorts of games, it will still stay quite expensive because service providers have significant infrastructure costs and they have to overcharge in some areas so they can be competitive in others. In other news, look at some of the great ideas for wireless gaming that have fallen flat: namely Nokia's N-Gage. Perhaps real multiplayer gaming (and gaming communities) are just for games consoles, PCs and Macs?
Linguistically you are correct. Being banished on pain of death means that if you return, the punishment is death.
/. and didn't read (watch) the article (film/book) they were commenting upon...
Presumably the commenters thought they were on
then Intel could apply for a trademark on "Intel outside"