Okay, so I vote out the guys that are there now, and vote in some new guys who I believe in. I think: "Problem solved. My vote counted!"
And then a piece of hideously draconian and unconstitutional legislation comes through, and the guy I voted for votes "Yea" while I sit here screaming "No, no, no!" Too late! I already voted him in, and now the evil legislation is law. I can punish the guy by voting him out four years later, but as I said -- too late!
This is exactly what happened in 2001, when the Patriot Act was passed into law with no debate and almost unanimous support.
So tell me: How do you feel about your vote in 2000? Feel like you made a difference? Feel like you're being represented?
And when you vote out the guy who failed you this time, who are you going to vote in, and what stops him from doing the exact same thing?
Even if you assume that belief was still held by Lutherans in the Nazi era and specifically by this Pastor, that only makes the quote more poignant.
You must not only stand up for the freedom of those groups who you aren't a member of, you must also stand up for the freedom of those groups who you don't like.
So did politicians suddenly become honest saints? Did they stop putting pork barrel riders on unrelated bills? Did they stop giving kickbacks to large corporations? Did "conservative" suddenly get redefined to mean "operating at a huge deficit"?
Because unless these things happened, calling the idea that those Republicans in power may be operating at odds to their stated ideals a "conspiracy theory" is crazier than just about any actual conspiracy theory you can name that doesn't involve aliens.
Politicians -- rich Republican politicians in this case -- are doing favors for their friends the big corporation (particularly those who fund their campaigns, or whom they have other financial ties to eg. Haliburton). Favors meaning giving them lots of money that comes from taxpayers.
Republicans are more dedicated to lining their pockets than any stated ideal of "compassionate conservatism" or whatever idea they use to continue to sell their actions to the public. Your response: "Conspiracy theory!"
Or maybe you're just reacting to the idea that every Republican is in on the scam. Well, you could interpret the statement that way, but obviously it only matters what the Republicans in power are doing. That many Republicans are sincere isn't really relevent if they aren't the ones making the decisions to line the pockets of the rich.
You can't possibly predict what they are going to do based on a rational model of human thought, and frequently their actions cause harm and inconvenience to others while gaining, at best, nothing for themselves.
Thank you for disecting the heart of the "conspiracy theory" issue. How can normally skeptical people call this a "conspiracy theory"?
Fact: A company is producing voting machines which are easily tamperable and which allow such tampering to go completely undetected except through observing anomalous results.
Fact: There are people who would benefit greatly from utilizing this ability.
Fact: The company in question has given a good deal of money to one of the groups of people who would benefit from exploiting the flaws in the company's system. Even stated that they want to help said group win.
How could a rational, skeptical person look at this and not think "something isn't right here"?
Perhaps you are right, and alleged skeptics have suddenly become convinced that everyone in politics (or just their favorite politicians?) have become saints.
Did he install it even though you said you didn't want it?
If he was going to install it against my wishes, would he tell me? Now that I think about it, the answer to your question would be "I don't know."
If not then I don't see a problem.
The problem is that he thought and tried to convince me that this Big Brother-ish system was not Big Brother-ish.
Obviously it didn't cause a problem for me, since I understand and avoid such things. What about every other poor guy who walks into the dealership, doesn't want to be spied upon, but doesn't realize that this is exactly what these systems allow? And when they do try to make this required, is he going to object?
As far as I'm concerned, there isn't much difference between shoving Big Brother down our throats, and coating it in chocolate so we swallow it willingly ourselves.
Some of us don't have to worry about it though. No one seems to want my car. It's actually been broken into and then left in the same spot. Maybe the thief got spooked but I figure they broke in, sat down and looked around then thought "aw, fuck this" and left.
Well, there's that. More with my old car (87 Tercel) than my new (03 Echo). I still never lock my doors, since I don't want them to have to break a window to find out there's nothing worth taking in my car.:)
Which reminds me of the hilarious part of this encounter: After I rejected the $600 Lo-Jack system, he then tried to sell me a couple policies that, for a combined value of $400, would not only pay off the remainder of my loan in the event that my car is stolen, it also gives me $5000. Which means that for the first few years it's better for me to let my car be stolen, because I'd actually make a profit off of it. He also looked pretty startled when I told him that.:)
I do, however, kinda see your point about it becoming commonplace. First it's Lo-Jack then we are inserting transmitters into newborns because "think of the chiiillldryyyyyyn." Still, I give this a firm 'meh'
Lo-Jack itself is "meh"; it's the attitudes that make people so unwary of putting something like that in their car that worries me.
When I bought a car recently, the finance guy tried to sell me Lo-Jack, which if you don't know is a microwave transmitter that the police can remotely enable and then pick up the signal from their squad car, ostensibly to retrieve your car when it gets stolen.
The relevent part is when he said "... and since it's only turned on when you report your car stolen, it isn't Big Brother-ish like On-Star and the others".
A microwave transmitter in my car that is directly controlled and monitored by the police. And that's not Big Brotherish. Riiiight.
That the guy seemed genuinely startled when I pointed out this obvious problem tells me that we've already lost.
There certainly has been no recount, formal or informal, would have given algore the electoral votes.
Not true.
The NORC study shows that under the state-wide recount oredered by the FL SC, Gore would have won.
Under other, partial, recounts Bush won. Ironically, under Gore's prefered recount method, Gore would have lost.
You probably saw this in the news as "Recount Shows Bush Would Have Won", with perhaps a footnote at the bottom about how actually Gore would have won, unless you used one of the recount methods that was never seriously considered.
I could frankly give a spacefaring fuck about the moon. Moving polluting industry off of earth and onto it sounds like a terrific use for space.
Assuming most of us are still living here on earth, though, that would mean we'd have to have -very- cheap access to space. A big hunk of raw minerals you can just shove down the gravity well and your biggest concern is the damage caused by the impact. Manufactured goods would need a somewhat more reliable landing.
Once again, the Space Elevator seems like the only way to achieve this goal. And once again, life begins to immitate my SMAC games.
You are constantly surrounded by objects that could, through accident, cause you bodily harm. In the vast majority of such cases being harmed by such an object -- eg a file cabinet can fall on you, or hot coffee could spill on you -- would be your own fault and any lawsuit claiming otherwise would be, indeed, frivolous. We all make reasonable assesments of the amount of danger a particular item represents -- the amount of harm it can cause, and the probability of it doing so -- and act accordingly. Obviously we sometimes screw up and aren't careful enough, and this is our own fault.
However when an object grossly exceeds either the probability of causing harm -- eg a file cabinet with in-built balast in the top so the slightest push sends it toppling over -- or the degree of harm -- eg coffee served so hot that it causes third degree burns -- then it is the maker of that product that is responsible for the flaw in their product that created that extra danger.
Think of it this way: If, due to the special top-secret blend of coffee McD's uses, at the moment the coffee was freed from its styrofoam containment unit it exploded killing her and her grandson, would you not say that McDonalds was at least partially at fault for serving coffee that explodes when spilt? Is there any possible way the old lady could have expected the coffee to explode? So is it unreasonable that she didn't treat the coffee as though it could explode?
Okay, now that we have some common ground, let me expand it for you: Just like coffee should not explode, coffee should not cause 3rd degree burns. Do you have any idea of how bad a 3rd Degree burn is? Ever had a really bad burn, like from touching the end of a soldering iron, with big, puss-oozing blisters and pain that lasts for weeks, probably requiring medical attention? That's second degree. 3rd degree is complete destruction of the skin through all layers down through the underlying tissue, and in many cases can only be healed through skin grafts, which are themselves a wonderful world of suffering.
I really don't think most people criticising this case understand what 3rd degree burns means. I have never known anyone who treated coffee as if it were capable of causing that degree of damage. Would you put a plugged-in iron on your dashboard? Of course not, that'd be insane! But we put coffee there all the time -- because it isn't that dangerous. Have you ever spilled coffee on yourself? I have! I treat it carefully, but not like a ticking time bomb, and thus sometimes slip up. Well, that gave me a 1st degree burn. Why? Because the coffee was at a reasonable temperature, and thus caused the amount of pain and harm I expected. If that spilt coffee had burned my arm down to a blackened, dead stump you can bet your ass I would have sued whoever gave it to me.
Just because the word "hot" can be used to describe normal, potentially scalding coffee and the lethal 180 degree concoction served at McDonalds doesn't mean they are the same thing or represent the same amount of danger.
You want to talk about responsibility? How about taking responsibility for serving someone a product that, when used correctly would kill you. Do you have an conception of what would have happened if she had actually drank any of that coffee?
I don't care how clumsy you think she was. There is no way a product capable of harming you in that way should be served in a flimsy styrofoam cup. "Warning: Contents Hot" doesn't cut it, because normal coffee is "hot". "Warning: May cause 3rd Degree Burns that cause permanent scaring!" along with this photo on the side of the cup, might begin to cover it.
I repeat: There is no way most people expect coffee to be able to do that kind of damage to them, because otherwise they wouldn't allow it to be served in stupid paper cups.
Let [submit 3rd world market here] convert to Linux, their poor, rich governments will continue to use what they believe to be the worlds most productive (and aggressively none compatible) OS.
Did you mean "... convert to Linux, they're poor. Rich governments will..."?
I bet you had to put up with more shit than I did.
I never got shoved around by the same guy twice, if that's what you mean. But you're right, I probably did have to put up with more shit than you.
If someone assaults me, I'm not going to try to match his force so that he has a change to come at me harder. I'm going to try to incapacitate him. End of story.
Okay, Ender Wiggins. I'm glad for you that you had that option. If I'd let a fight escalate to that level, I'd just as likely be the one to get incapacitated.
You have to do what works for you. I did what worked for me. I have no interest in playing tit for tat games with someone who is attacking me.
If you're talking about being literally attacked, as in someone attempting to do you grievous bodily harm, then yes I agree. At that point you have no choice. We were talking about bullying, though. Bullying doesn't have to end with that kind of violence.
If you throw a punch at me, I'm going to try to break your nose. If you pull a knife on me, I'm going to pull a gun on you. If you pull a gun on me, I'm going to shoot you in the face. Most importantly, if you leave me alone. I'll leave you alone.
And when you try to break their nose, they pull a knife, at which point you pull a gun, at which point they try to shoot you in the face and vice versa. You are not just endorsing an escalation of violonce, you are causing it.
When I was in school, I would always defend myself if necessary. But I would always try to respond with the exact same force as was used against me. If someone pushed me, I'd push them back to where they were, not try to shove them over. If someone slugged me, I'd slug them back just as hard, but no harder. If they hit me in the chest or stomach I wouldn't aim for their face or crotch.
I'm still showing them that I can and will defend myself, but I'm not escalating the conflict. Raising the bar of violence simply invites them to raise it again in return. It's a challenge. On the other hand, by not escalating I don't create a situation where they have to strike back harder in order to protect their pride. You've gotten them back for what they did, and given them no reason to respond.
In this way I was able to defuse practically every fight I was involved in before it became serious. The only time this wasn't the case was when I broke my rule and hit a guy, who was shovivng me around, in the face. Unsurprisingly, he attacked back and we both ended up with bloody and bruised faces, not to mention suspensions.
Another benefit of my method: it doesn't require you to be able to out-escalate your opponent. If I had let my fights go that way, I would have ended up with a severely kicked ass in most cases. By the time I was capable of really physically defending myself I was a senior in high school and captain of the wrestling team which meant I really didn't have bully problems anymore.
You see what most German cities looked like in May of 1945?
If your point was that it is possible to conventionally bomb cities off the map, then you wasted your keystrokes.
If your vocabulary for destruction ends with "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" then may I suggest you invest some mental capital in a study of the current arsenal?
Oh, please. Is that really what you thought I was saying? That nothing could be worse than Hiroshima?
If a terrorist took a Hiroshima-sized bomb and blew it up in a Hiroshima-sized city and blew it Hiroshima-off-the-fucking-map, would it not fucking count?! Is that not enough of a bad thing for you? "What? Oakland, California was destroyed by nuclear weapons; terrorists blamed? What was the yield of the bomb? They're estimating 30 kilotons? Oh... *yawn* Okay..." Yeah, right.
My point is and still remains: Two cities already have been "nuked off the map", and that's still true even if we later made bigger bombs.
You see what those places looked like after the bomb dropped? "On the map" was pretty much the only place they were. Maybe they rebuilt in the last 50 years, ya think?
Uninhabitable is relative to your tolerance for increased cancer rates.
And it's just silly to say it doesn't count because the fallout wasn't so bad that people couldn't potentially live there again. Would it not count if whatever biological weapon he was talking about only killed 85% of the people in a city? Yeah.
That's stupid. It's VIRUSES, now please stop using that insane bastardization.
Oh, and it's stupid to say that the only difference between cancerous and non cancerous cell is that one divides endlessly and one doesn't. Unless you think that there's no reason that one is dividing endlessly and one not, which would contradict what we already know about cancer. And would be pretty stupid. So yeah, that comes up again.
Not that you're stupid. Just what you said was stupid.:)
Do you realize how badly they'd get shit upon by their shareholders?
The only number I found briefly searching the web said that Microsoft derived $1.2 billion in revenue from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Assuming the bulk of that comes from Europe, you're talking a lot of money. And you think the investors are going to let Microsoft just walk away from that?
The question is: does Microsoft want money more than Europe wants Microsoft? I think the answer is yes.
Here's a choice quote: "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."
Oh, that's just freaking wonderful.
I'm glad we can relieve the victim of the unfortunate and terrible burden of actually proving that they are victims.
Because the problem is not a lack of trust in closed-source. It's a lack of trust in the providers of the systems. Diebold and MicroVote and whoever else could distribute the source code tomorrow without changing my trust (or rather lack thereof) on bit.
That's what I'm saying. Open source is better, but is not a panacea and in fact does not address this issue of trust at all. Those who believe that it is a panacea (the tagline "anyone still trust closed source?" implies that not-closed should be trustworthy) are wrong and will only be given a false sense of security by an open source voting system.
I believe it was Tannenbaum (saw it in Jargon File, but can't find it now, so I could be wrong) who put a back door into the original Unix login. Of course since the code to login was available, anyone could find and remove the back door. So he altered the compiler so that it would detect that it was compiling login, and insert the backdoor. Of course the code to the compiler was available, so to hide that he made the compiler recognize when it was compiling itself, and insert the backdoor-generator into itself. Once that's done, he could safetly remove the backdoor code from cc and login, and the backdoor would simply silently propagate.
Unless you build your computer yourself out of discreet components (or your handy "Mr. Silicon Fab") you have to at some point trust something.
Oh, and that article was written by Ken Thompson, not Ritche.
Okay, and now that I read it, he is describing exactly the hack I mentioned. And he describes it as something he did himself, which means I was wrong about it being Tannenbaum.
I thought that this was a proposition that Americans took for granted. Free is better because it's free.
When China's economy passes ours, will that make China "better"? Well, not in my opinion. But I guess that'll be when Bill Gates lobbies Congress to turn the U.S. into a socialist democratic dictatorship.
Please don't pick apart that analogy. I had a hard time coming up with a "free but not better by other metrics as well" example off the top of my head.
As long as you're using rockets and not transporter beams or beanstalks, you have to fly through the air to get to orbit.
Of course! The answer has been here the whole time! Instead of waiting for the eventual development of cheaply manufacturable extremely long carbon nanotubes to build a space elevator, we can just rely on centuries-old technology: beanstalks. The initial investment is low: just one old cow. Plus the benefits are astounding: cheap access to space, and a golden-egg-laying goose if you manage to catch the giant while he's asleep.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, so I vote out the guys that are there now, and vote in some new guys who I believe in. I think: "Problem solved. My vote counted!"
And then a piece of hideously draconian and unconstitutional legislation comes through, and the guy I voted for votes "Yea" while I sit here screaming "No, no, no!" Too late! I already voted him in, and now the evil legislation is law. I can punish the guy by voting him out four years later, but as I said -- too late!
This is exactly what happened in 2001, when the Patriot Act was passed into law with no debate and almost unanimous support.
So tell me: How do you feel about your vote in 2000? Feel like you made a difference? Feel like you're being represented?
And when you vote out the guy who failed you this time, who are you going to vote in, and what stops him from doing the exact same thing?
Even if you assume that belief was still held by Lutherans in the Nazi era and specifically by this Pastor, that only makes the quote more poignant.
You must not only stand up for the freedom of those groups who you aren't a member of, you must also stand up for the freedom of those groups who you don't like.
So did politicians suddenly become honest saints? Did they stop putting pork barrel riders on unrelated bills? Did they stop giving kickbacks to large corporations? Did "conservative" suddenly get redefined to mean "operating at a huge deficit"?
Because unless these things happened, calling the idea that those Republicans in power may be operating at odds to their stated ideals a "conspiracy theory" is crazier than just about any actual conspiracy theory you can name that doesn't involve aliens.
Politicians -- rich Republican politicians in this case -- are doing favors for their friends the big corporation (particularly those who fund their campaigns, or whom they have other financial ties to eg. Haliburton). Favors meaning giving them lots of money that comes from taxpayers.
Republicans are more dedicated to lining their pockets than any stated ideal of "compassionate conservatism" or whatever idea they use to continue to sell their actions to the public. Your response: "Conspiracy theory!"
Or maybe you're just reacting to the idea that every Republican is in on the scam. Well, you could interpret the statement that way, but obviously it only matters what the Republicans in power are doing. That many Republicans are sincere isn't really relevent if they aren't the ones making the decisions to line the pockets of the rich.
Either way: Weak.
... Austin drivers.
You can't possibly predict what they are going to do based on a rational model of human thought, and frequently their actions cause harm and inconvenience to others while gaining, at best, nothing for themselves.
Thank you for disecting the heart of the "conspiracy theory" issue. How can normally skeptical people call this a "conspiracy theory"?
Fact: A company is producing voting machines which are easily tamperable and which allow such tampering to go completely undetected except through observing anomalous results.
Fact: There are people who would benefit greatly from utilizing this ability.
Fact: The company in question has given a good deal of money to one of the groups of people who would benefit from exploiting the flaws in the company's system. Even stated that they want to help said group win.
How could a rational, skeptical person look at this and not think "something isn't right here"?
Perhaps you are right, and alleged skeptics have suddenly become convinced that everyone in politics (or just their favorite politicians?) have become saints.
Did he install it even though you said you didn't want it?
:)
:)
If he was going to install it against my wishes, would he tell me? Now that I think about it, the answer to your question would be "I don't know."
If not then I don't see a problem.
The problem is that he thought and tried to convince me that this Big Brother-ish system was not Big Brother-ish.
Obviously it didn't cause a problem for me, since I understand and avoid such things. What about every other poor guy who walks into the dealership, doesn't want to be spied upon, but doesn't realize that this is exactly what these systems allow? And when they do try to make this required, is he going to object?
As far as I'm concerned, there isn't much difference between shoving Big Brother down our throats, and coating it in chocolate so we swallow it willingly ourselves.
Some of us don't have to worry about it though. No one seems to want my car. It's actually been broken into and then left in the same spot. Maybe the thief got spooked but I figure they broke in, sat down and looked around then thought "aw, fuck this" and left.
Well, there's that. More with my old car (87 Tercel) than my new (03 Echo). I still never lock my doors, since I don't want them to have to break a window to find out there's nothing worth taking in my car.
Which reminds me of the hilarious part of this encounter: After I rejected the $600 Lo-Jack system, he then tried to sell me a couple policies that, for a combined value of $400, would not only pay off the remainder of my loan in the event that my car is stolen, it also gives me $5000. Which means that for the first few years it's better for me to let my car be stolen, because I'd actually make a profit off of it. He also looked pretty startled when I told him that.
I do, however, kinda see your point about it becoming commonplace. First it's Lo-Jack then we are inserting transmitters into newborns because "think of the chiiillldryyyyyyn." Still, I give this a firm 'meh'
Lo-Jack itself is "meh"; it's the attitudes that make people so unwary of putting something like that in their car that worries me.
When I bought a car recently, the finance guy tried to sell me Lo-Jack, which if you don't know is a microwave transmitter that the police can remotely enable and then pick up the signal from their squad car, ostensibly to retrieve your car when it gets stolen.
The relevent part is when he said "... and since it's only turned on when you report your car stolen, it isn't Big Brother-ish like On-Star and the others".
A microwave transmitter in my car that is directly controlled and monitored by the police. And that's not Big Brotherish. Riiiight.
That the guy seemed genuinely startled when I pointed out this obvious problem tells me that we've already lost.
Until you go to the NORC site, look at the results yourself, and find out that I'm right you are the one believing things.
HAND.
There certainly has been no recount, formal or informal, would have given algore the electoral votes.
Not true.
The NORC study shows that under the state-wide recount oredered by the FL SC, Gore would have won.
Under other, partial, recounts Bush won. Ironically, under Gore's prefered recount method, Gore would have lost.
You probably saw this in the news as "Recount Shows Bush Would Have Won", with perhaps a footnote at the bottom about how actually Gore would have won, unless you used one of the recount methods that was never seriously considered.
I think this is strange.
That's a damn good idea.
I could frankly give a spacefaring fuck about the moon. Moving polluting industry off of earth and onto it sounds like a terrific use for space.
Assuming most of us are still living here on earth, though, that would mean we'd have to have -very- cheap access to space. A big hunk of raw minerals you can just shove down the gravity well and your biggest concern is the damage caused by the impact. Manufactured goods would need a somewhat more reliable landing.
Once again, the Space Elevator seems like the only way to achieve this goal. And once again, life begins to immitate my SMAC games.
You are constantly surrounded by objects that could, through accident, cause you bodily harm. In the vast majority of such cases being harmed by such an object -- eg a file cabinet can fall on you, or hot coffee could spill on you -- would be your own fault and any lawsuit claiming otherwise would be, indeed, frivolous. We all make reasonable assesments of the amount of danger a particular item represents -- the amount of harm it can cause, and the probability of it doing so -- and act accordingly. Obviously we sometimes screw up and aren't careful enough, and this is our own fault.
However when an object grossly exceeds either the probability of causing harm -- eg a file cabinet with in-built balast in the top so the slightest push sends it toppling over -- or the degree of harm -- eg coffee served so hot that it causes third degree burns -- then it is the maker of that product that is responsible for the flaw in their product that created that extra danger.
Think of it this way: If, due to the special top-secret blend of coffee McD's uses, at the moment the coffee was freed from its styrofoam containment unit it exploded killing her and her grandson, would you not say that McDonalds was at least partially at fault for serving coffee that explodes when spilt? Is there any possible way the old lady could have expected the coffee to explode? So is it unreasonable that she didn't treat the coffee as though it could explode?
Okay, now that we have some common ground, let me expand it for you: Just like coffee should not explode, coffee should not cause 3rd degree burns. Do you have any idea of how bad a 3rd Degree burn is? Ever had a really bad burn, like from touching the end of a soldering iron, with big, puss-oozing blisters and pain that lasts for weeks, probably requiring medical attention? That's second degree. 3rd degree is complete destruction of the skin through all layers down through the underlying tissue, and in many cases can only be healed through skin grafts, which are themselves a wonderful world of suffering.
I really don't think most people criticising this case understand what 3rd degree burns means. I have never known anyone who treated coffee as if it were capable of causing that degree of damage. Would you put a plugged-in iron on your dashboard? Of course not, that'd be insane! But we put coffee there all the time -- because it isn't that dangerous. Have you ever spilled coffee on yourself? I have! I treat it carefully, but not like a ticking time bomb, and thus sometimes slip up. Well, that gave me a 1st degree burn. Why? Because the coffee was at a reasonable temperature, and thus caused the amount of pain and harm I expected. If that spilt coffee had burned my arm down to a blackened, dead stump you can bet your ass I would have sued whoever gave it to me.
Just because the word "hot" can be used to describe normal, potentially scalding coffee and the lethal 180 degree concoction served at McDonalds doesn't mean they are the same thing or represent the same amount of danger.
You want to talk about responsibility? How about taking responsibility for serving someone a product that, when used correctly would kill you. Do you have an conception of what would have happened if she had actually drank any of that coffee?
I don't care how clumsy you think she was. There is no way a product capable of harming you in that way should be served in a flimsy styrofoam cup. "Warning: Contents Hot" doesn't cut it, because normal coffee is "hot". "Warning: May cause 3rd Degree Burns that cause permanent scaring!" along with this photo on the side of the cup, might begin to cover it.
I repeat: There is no way most people expect coffee to be able to do that kind of damage to them, because otherwise they wouldn't allow it to be served in stupid paper cups.
None of which is meant to say it was
Let [submit 3rd world market here] convert to Linux, their poor, rich governments will continue to use what they believe to be the worlds most productive (and aggressively none compatible) OS.
Did you mean "... convert to Linux, they're poor. Rich governments will..."?
I bet you had to put up with more shit than I did.
I never got shoved around by the same guy twice, if that's what you mean. But you're right, I probably did have to put up with more shit than you.
If someone assaults me, I'm not going to try to match his force so that he has a change to come at me harder. I'm going to try to incapacitate him. End of story.
Okay, Ender Wiggins. I'm glad for you that you had that option. If I'd let a fight escalate to that level, I'd just as likely be the one to get incapacitated.
You have to do what works for you. I did what worked for me. I have no interest in playing tit for tat games with someone who is attacking me.
If you're talking about being literally attacked, as in someone attempting to do you grievous bodily harm, then yes I agree. At that point you have no choice. We were talking about bullying, though. Bullying doesn't have to end with that kind of violence.
If you throw a punch at me, I'm going to try to break your nose. If you pull a knife on me, I'm going to pull a gun on you. If you pull a gun on me, I'm going to shoot you in the face. Most importantly, if you leave me alone. I'll leave you alone.
And when you try to break their nose, they pull a knife, at which point you pull a gun, at which point they try to shoot you in the face and vice versa. You are not just endorsing an escalation of violonce, you are causing it.
When I was in school, I would always defend myself if necessary. But I would always try to respond with the exact same force as was used against me. If someone pushed me, I'd push them back to where they were, not try to shove them over. If someone slugged me, I'd slug them back just as hard, but no harder. If they hit me in the chest or stomach I wouldn't aim for their face or crotch.
I'm still showing them that I can and will defend myself, but I'm not escalating the conflict. Raising the bar of violence simply invites them to raise it again in return. It's a challenge. On the other hand, by not escalating I don't create a situation where they have to strike back harder in order to protect their pride. You've gotten them back for what they did, and given them no reason to respond.
In this way I was able to defuse practically every fight I was involved in before it became serious. The only time this wasn't the case was when I broke my rule and hit a guy, who was shovivng me around, in the face. Unsurprisingly, he attacked back and we both ended up with bloody and bruised faces, not to mention suspensions.
Another benefit of my method: it doesn't require you to be able to out-escalate your opponent. If I had let my fights go that way, I would have ended up with a severely kicked ass in most cases. By the time I was capable of really physically defending myself I was a senior in high school and captain of the wrestling team which meant I really didn't have bully problems anymore.
You see what most German cities looked like in May of 1945?
If your point was that it is possible to conventionally bomb cities off the map, then you wasted your keystrokes.
If your vocabulary for destruction ends with "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" then may I suggest you invest some mental capital in a study of the current arsenal?
Oh, please. Is that really what you thought I was saying? That nothing could be worse than Hiroshima?
If a terrorist took a Hiroshima-sized bomb and blew it up in a Hiroshima-sized city and blew it Hiroshima-off-the-fucking-map, would it not fucking count?! Is that not enough of a bad thing for you? "What? Oakland, California was destroyed by nuclear weapons; terrorists blamed? What was the yield of the bomb? They're estimating 30 kilotons? Oh... *yawn* Okay..." Yeah, right.
My point is and still remains: Two cities already have been "nuked off the map", and that's still true even if we later made bigger bombs.
And yeah, it could be worse.
You see what those places looked like after the bomb dropped? "On the map" was pretty much the only place they were. Maybe they rebuilt in the last 50 years, ya think?
Uninhabitable is relative to your tolerance for increased cancer rates.
And it's just silly to say it doesn't count because the fallout wasn't so bad that people couldn't potentially live there again. Would it not count if whatever biological weapon he was talking about only killed 85% of the people in a city? Yeah.
even nuke a city off the map (Nowhere... yet)
It's happened twice. What, it only counts if terrorists do it?
But anyway, insightful post.
That's stupid. It's VIRUSES, now please stop using that insane bastardization.
:)
Oh, and it's stupid to say that the only difference between cancerous and non cancerous cell is that one divides endlessly and one doesn't. Unless you think that there's no reason that one is dividing endlessly and one not, which would contradict what we already know about cancer. And would be pretty stupid. So yeah, that comes up again.
Not that you're stupid. Just what you said was stupid.
P.S. Please never use the non-word virii again.
Oh, to live in a place that doesn't apathetically accept the most fucking blatant conflicts of interest.
I don't think I really want to move to Belgium; I want the US to be that place. But frankly I think it's more likely that Belgium will move to me.
Do you realize how badly they'd get shit upon by their shareholders?
The only number I found briefly searching the web said that Microsoft derived $1.2 billion in revenue from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Assuming the bulk of that comes from Europe, you're talking a lot of money. And you think the investors are going to let Microsoft just walk away from that?
The question is: does Microsoft want money more than Europe wants Microsoft? I think the answer is yes.
Here's a choice quote: "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."
Oh, that's just freaking wonderful.
I'm glad we can relieve the victim of the unfortunate and terrible burden of actually proving that they are victims.
Holy shit, this is ridiculous.
Because the problem is not a lack of trust in closed-source. It's a lack of trust in the providers of the systems. Diebold and MicroVote and whoever else could distribute the source code tomorrow without changing my trust (or rather lack thereof) on bit.
That's what I'm saying. Open source is better, but is not a panacea and in fact does not address this issue of trust at all. Those who believe that it is a panacea (the tagline "anyone still trust closed source?" implies that not-closed should be trustworthy) are wrong and will only be given a false sense of security by an open source voting system.
That's why I call it Kool Aid.
I'm aware of this.
I believe it was Tannenbaum (saw it in Jargon File, but can't find it now, so I could be wrong) who put a back door into the original Unix login. Of course since the code to login was available, anyone could find and remove the back door. So he altered the compiler so that it would detect that it was compiling login, and insert the backdoor. Of course the code to the compiler was available, so to hide that he made the compiler recognize when it was compiling itself, and insert the backdoor-generator into itself. Once that's done, he could safetly remove the backdoor code from cc and login, and the backdoor would simply silently propagate.
Unless you build your computer yourself out of discreet components (or your handy "Mr. Silicon Fab") you have to at some point trust something.
Oh, and that article was written by Ken Thompson, not Ritche.
Okay, and now that I read it, he is describing exactly the hack I mentioned. And he describes it as something he did himself, which means I was wrong about it being Tannenbaum.
I thought that this was a proposition that Americans took for granted. Free is better because it's free.
When China's economy passes ours, will that make China "better"? Well, not in my opinion. But I guess that'll be when Bill Gates lobbies Congress to turn the U.S. into a socialist democratic dictatorship.
Please don't pick apart that analogy. I had a hard time coming up with a "free but not better by other metrics as well" example off the top of my head.
As long as you're using rockets and not transporter beams or beanstalks, you have to fly through the air to get to orbit.
Of course! The answer has been here the whole time! Instead of waiting for the eventual development of cheaply manufacturable extremely long carbon nanotubes to build a space elevator, we can just rely on centuries-old technology: beanstalks. The initial investment is low: just one old cow. Plus the benefits are astounding: cheap access to space, and a golden-egg-laying goose if you manage to catch the giant while he's asleep.