See, now that's just doing the same thing from the other side. I know some very thoughtful people who are really into guns. I've even been to the range, and have to admit that it is a lot of fun. I even think it is reasonable to have a gun at home for property and personal protection. I just have trouble coming up with a likely scenario where a pistol fills that role better than a long gun.
You don't know the house is empty, though - you even said that their 13-year-old was almost home.
Around here, even the dumbest thieves do pretty well despite their stupidity. They generally wander the neighborhood looking for open windows and doors late at night. They get caught in the most unbelievably stupid ways... stuff like using the same pawn broker over and over or using a stolen credit card at the gas station where they get their picture and license plate taken on the CCTV. One guy was robbing his own neighbors and bringing the stuff back to his own house. Just plain stupid.
IMHO, complicating a simple unlawful entry crime with grand theft auto and multiple venues is an example of acting more clever than you really are. KISS:)
There's always a tradeoff between hoarding and becoming a librarian. I could dedicate the next month of my free time to reducing my storage footprint, or I could cough up another $200 to increase my server space a bit. With the exception of running something like Grand Perspective, Space Monger, Baobab, etc. I'd rather just spend a few bucks.
Wow, that seems like a lot of trouble for a burglar, simply to avoid breaking a window! Then again, they aren't usually the smartest people. Probably someone you knew from the church.
It is because the people proposing such controls are not acting in good faith.
Some of them, yes. Just like some gun proponents are threatening this poor sales rep. But most people who are not on some extreme should be able to have a conversation without instantly laying into one another.
That's why gun owners are adopting a zero tolerance attitude towards new regulation.
I'm afraid that strategy will fail catastrophically as people urbanize.
Thank you for illustrating my point. You don't want to discuss what is and isn't a reasonable regulation under the 2nd Amendment, so you make an appeal to fear.
So long as we have corporations with free speech, they are completely legitimate targets as they are completely tied up in the political process. A "safety gun" company is absolutely going to encourage us towards requirement for their weapons.
The problem is that we have a poison atmosphere where any discussion of reasonable regulation get's you thrown into one camp or another.
In particular, I am generally very pro-gun but I'm also in favor of more tightly regulating handguns. We already regulate the sawed-off version of shotguns, fully automatic rifles, etc. so I'm not sure why the suggestion that we treat handguns a bit more strictly elicits such a strong reaction. They are objectively the largest contributor to homocide in this country - it seems like a reasonable thing to discuss, anyway.
Unable? This is about maximizing profit, not ability. They looked into domestic production of this engine and decided to save the billion or so dollars. Looking at this court decision, they may have made the right decision if they get stuck competing with a lower-cost provider of launches.
I'm not sure that SpaceX will prevail in the short term. Ostensibly, the reason the military is willing to pay the Alliance so much is they can't insure their satellites, so they need a very reliable launch vehicle instead. Perhaps SpaceX will prove to be very reliable, but they aren't there yet.
Avoid "wedge issues". Even those that I feel strongly about don't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
Approach politics with people as if you were discussing sports. You wouldn't start out a friendly bar discussion with a Jets fan by saying, "Man, the Jest just SUCK!" and the same is true with political fans.
Has America completely lost its grasp of the difference between what you're "free" to do, and what is (and should be) regulated?
Many Americans have a skeptical view of authority, and I think that it is justified. For every regulation implemented for our safety, there are a handful of jackasses abusing the situation. Drone flights during rescue operations may very well be a hazard, and banning them during such operations probably has some merit. On the other hand, whatever law is in place to enact such a ban will invariably be abused to prevent someone from seeing "something they shouldn't" in the judgement of some bureaucrat.
We see this all the time with some of these insane penalties for computer crimes that are inflicted on well-meaning hackers. Even when they end up causing some grief, we throw penalties at them which are meant for organized crime, large-scale financial fraud, and terrorism.
Market share != profit share. Market share isn't terribly important at all unless it becomes so low that you have trouble achieving economy of scale or attracting developers. Neither of those things has happened, so Apple continues to be insanely profitable for a hardware maker.
A friend of mine keeps a photocopy of it in his glovebox and leaves the original in his safe deposit box. Kooky, but he claims to have never had a serious problem.
The problem is not so much that there is a single rancher out there who is racist or that the owner of the LA Clippers thinks that he is the owner of a plantation. I brought those two events up because they illustrate two of my points nicely. The first is that there are still rich white men in positions of power and influence who are racist. That problem will remain significant until the old guys die off, I'm afraid. The second point I wanted to make is to show how effectively these two events have been used politically. If we weren't hung up on race in this country, then there would be no political value in the insignificant rantings of two old holdouts of a different era.
You are probably the closest with the democrats using all this to fire up their base though.
They certainly are guilty of that, but I see it on the other side as well - especially in regards to the immigration discussion.
So was zimmerman justified in following a suspicious teen who was new to the area?
Following? Maybe. Calling 911? Perhaps. Confronting while armed? Almost certainly not. The guy thought he was a cop, and he was not. You take two hotheads and a firearm, mix thoroughly and you get a shooting.
Is getting pulled over for driving while black legitimate ir NYC's stop and frisk program?
I agree with you there - those programs are short-sighted and frankly offensive.
The entire idea od data can create real racism that is founded in actions.
I don't think there is any problem with looking at large swaths of statistical data and trying to draw conclusions from it. Statistics are tricky and can lead to false conclusions. Selection bias can be a real problem, and sometimes people like to make too much of noisy data or little tiny correlations.
But racial statistics don't generally fall into any of those traps. There are two general themes I've seen in racial data: 1. The gulf between whites and blacks in nearly every category is wide enough to be clear and unambiguous. 2. Things have steadily improved since the late 60s.
Point 2 means that point 1 will go away eventually (hopefully). But it hasn't been very long, just about 45 years - far too many people from that era are still alive. It'll be a great day when we stop collecting data because it is all noise:)
This is not "Flamebait", but I think it is a naive view of poverty in the US. Do poor people make poor choices? Yes, naturally. Some make poor choices so often that it could even be the reason that they are poor.
So you can stand there and point at them and blame them for their condition. It's reasonable. You give them healthcare, you give them education (of some sort), you give them food, you give them money - and what do they do? They stay poor, make bad decisions, and raise poor kids who do the exact same thing.
I suggest that you take on a more proactive mindset. These poor people and the poor kids they raise are your problem, too. Poverty drags down the economy, it drags down our schools, and it costs us a fortune. It undermines democracy as you increasingly have an electorate dependent on the government that can vote themselves benefits.
If you want to improve their lives, and thus to some extent your own life, you need to make the better choices more attractive. No, you are under no moral obligation to do so - but I do think it is in your own self interest. That is why I disagree with the point you are bringing up, even if I also disagree with the mods who are not helping in having a constructive discussion about this topic.
It's not so much that FORTRAN was horrible, but AFAIK it did not lend itself to a simple interpreter and so the gratification was not instant. Compiling is an extra step and it is not a fun step. In addition (again relying on very faint memory), BASIC had easier string-handling functions built in until FORTRAN77 - and most of us were dealing with strings when we were learning to program.
Slashdot Mirror
See, now that's just doing the same thing from the other side. I know some very thoughtful people who are really into guns. I've even been to the range, and have to admit that it is a lot of fun. I even think it is reasonable to have a gun at home for property and personal protection. I just have trouble coming up with a likely scenario where a pistol fills that role better than a long gun.
You don't know the house is empty, though - you even said that their 13-year-old was almost home.
Around here, even the dumbest thieves do pretty well despite their stupidity. They generally wander the neighborhood looking for open windows and doors late at night. They get caught in the most unbelievably stupid ways... stuff like using the same pawn broker over and over or using a stolen credit card at the gas station where they get their picture and license plate taken on the CCTV. One guy was robbing his own neighbors and bringing the stuff back to his own house. Just plain stupid.
IMHO, complicating a simple unlawful entry crime with grand theft auto and multiple venues is an example of acting more clever than you really are. KISS :)
There's always a tradeoff between hoarding and becoming a librarian. I could dedicate the next month of my free time to reducing my storage footprint, or I could cough up another $200 to increase my server space a bit. With the exception of running something like Grand Perspective, Space Monger, Baobab, etc. I'd rather just spend a few bucks.
Wow, that seems like a lot of trouble for a burglar, simply to avoid breaking a window! Then again, they aren't usually the smartest people. Probably someone you knew from the church.
you'll have to do more than vote.
Like give money to, say, some kind of organization dedicated to reform?
It is because the people proposing such controls are not acting in good faith.
Some of them, yes. Just like some gun proponents are threatening this poor sales rep. But most people who are not on some extreme should be able to have a conversation without instantly laying into one another.
That's why gun owners are adopting a zero tolerance attitude towards new regulation.
I'm afraid that strategy will fail catastrophically as people urbanize.
Thank you for illustrating my point. You don't want to discuss what is and isn't a reasonable regulation under the 2nd Amendment, so you make an appeal to fear.
They should just do something analogous to what smoke detectors do. Like every few minutes when the battery gets low, automatically fire off a round.
So long as we have corporations with free speech, they are completely legitimate targets as they are completely tied up in the political process. A "safety gun" company is absolutely going to encourage us towards requirement for their weapons.
The problem is that we have a poison atmosphere where any discussion of reasonable regulation get's you thrown into one camp or another.
In particular, I am generally very pro-gun but I'm also in favor of more tightly regulating handguns. We already regulate the sawed-off version of shotguns, fully automatic rifles, etc. so I'm not sure why the suggestion that we treat handguns a bit more strictly elicits such a strong reaction. They are objectively the largest contributor to homocide in this country - it seems like a reasonable thing to discuss, anyway.
Unable? This is about maximizing profit, not ability. They looked into domestic production of this engine and decided to save the billion or so dollars. Looking at this court decision, they may have made the right decision if they get stuck competing with a lower-cost provider of launches.
I'm not sure that SpaceX will prevail in the short term. Ostensibly, the reason the military is willing to pay the Alliance so much is they can't insure their satellites, so they need a very reliable launch vehicle instead. Perhaps SpaceX will prove to be very reliable, but they aren't there yet.
I find people seem much more rational if you:
They are already doing it.
Like I said, our cynicism is justified.
It's not funny when a President makes the joke, but I'm guessing that Obama and Putin do not post as an AC on Slashdot.
Life is Beautiful was a fantastic comedy about the Holocaust. There's humor everywhere, and it makes a damn fine coping mechanism for many of us.
I only know this because I use a terminal program too much. Don't want to be hitting control codes in that situation :)
It's conceivable that some constants and such have a slight drift. Hell, space itself appears to be expanding so anything is fair game IMHO!
Has America completely lost its grasp of the difference between what you're "free" to do, and what is (and should be) regulated?
Many Americans have a skeptical view of authority, and I think that it is justified. For every regulation implemented for our safety, there are a handful of jackasses abusing the situation. Drone flights during rescue operations may very well be a hazard, and banning them during such operations probably has some merit. On the other hand, whatever law is in place to enact such a ban will invariably be abused to prevent someone from seeing "something they shouldn't" in the judgement of some bureaucrat.
We see this all the time with some of these insane penalties for computer crimes that are inflicted on well-meaning hackers. Even when they end up causing some grief, we throw penalties at them which are meant for organized crime, large-scale financial fraud, and terrorism.
Well, I threw that in there as an attempt at humor because of the whole "insanely great" thing...
Market share != profit share. Market share isn't terribly important at all unless it becomes so low that you have trouble achieving economy of scale or attracting developers. Neither of those things has happened, so Apple continues to be insanely profitable for a hardware maker.
Yeah, there is nothing more fun than programming on a tablet.
A friend of mine keeps a photocopy of it in his glovebox and leaves the original in his safe deposit box. Kooky, but he claims to have never had a serious problem.
In both cases though, where is the problem?
The problem is not so much that there is a single rancher out there who is racist or that the owner of the LA Clippers thinks that he is the owner of a plantation. I brought those two events up because they illustrate two of my points nicely. The first is that there are still rich white men in positions of power and influence who are racist. That problem will remain significant until the old guys die off, I'm afraid. The second point I wanted to make is to show how effectively these two events have been used politically. If we weren't hung up on race in this country, then there would be no political value in the insignificant rantings of two old holdouts of a different era.
You are probably the closest with the democrats using all this to fire up their base though.
They certainly are guilty of that, but I see it on the other side as well - especially in regards to the immigration discussion.
So was zimmerman justified in following a suspicious teen who was new to the area?
Following? Maybe. Calling 911? Perhaps. Confronting while armed? Almost certainly not. The guy thought he was a cop, and he was not. You take two hotheads and a firearm, mix thoroughly and you get a shooting.
Is getting pulled over for driving while black legitimate ir NYC's stop and frisk program?
I agree with you there - those programs are short-sighted and frankly offensive.
The entire idea od data can create real racism that is founded in actions.
I don't think there is any problem with looking at large swaths of statistical data and trying to draw conclusions from it. Statistics are tricky and can lead to false conclusions. Selection bias can be a real problem, and sometimes people like to make too much of noisy data or little tiny correlations.
But racial statistics don't generally fall into any of those traps. There are two general themes I've seen in racial data:
1. The gulf between whites and blacks in nearly every category is wide enough to be clear and unambiguous.
2. Things have steadily improved since the late 60s.
Point 2 means that point 1 will go away eventually (hopefully). But it hasn't been very long, just about 45 years - far too many people from that era are still alive. It'll be a great day when we stop collecting data because it is all noise :)
This is not "Flamebait", but I think it is a naive view of poverty in the US. Do poor people make poor choices? Yes, naturally. Some make poor choices so often that it could even be the reason that they are poor.
So you can stand there and point at them and blame them for their condition. It's reasonable. You give them healthcare, you give them education (of some sort), you give them food, you give them money - and what do they do? They stay poor, make bad decisions, and raise poor kids who do the exact same thing.
I suggest that you take on a more proactive mindset. These poor people and the poor kids they raise are your problem, too. Poverty drags down the economy, it drags down our schools, and it costs us a fortune. It undermines democracy as you increasingly have an electorate dependent on the government that can vote themselves benefits.
If you want to improve their lives, and thus to some extent your own life, you need to make the better choices more attractive. No, you are under no moral obligation to do so - but I do think it is in your own self interest. That is why I disagree with the point you are bringing up, even if I also disagree with the mods who are not helping in having a constructive discussion about this topic.
It's not so much that FORTRAN was horrible, but AFAIK it did not lend itself to a simple interpreter and so the gratification was not instant. Compiling is an extra step and it is not a fun step. In addition (again relying on very faint memory), BASIC had easier string-handling functions built in until FORTRAN77 - and most of us were dealing with strings when we were learning to program.
Really fantastic languages let the user choose which base to use in combination with an ambiguous default.