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User: notcreative

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Comments · 219

  1. Engage your neighbours on FCC Broadcast Flag Struck Down · · Score: 1

    The point I was trying to make is that it is circular to argue that:

    1) People are too stupid to vote correctly.

    2) I'm not going to waste my time educating them or engaging them in conversation.

    The argument, to me, sounds like "1 therefore 2, 2 therefore 1. QED." It seems hypocritical and intellectually lazy to me.

  2. Corporations can't vote on FCC Broadcast Flag Struck Down · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can be unhappy with the way your fellow citizens vote, but corporations aren't electing these people into Congress. Other people in your community are. If you don't like that, don't sit on your beanbag and complain about how corporations are destroying the country. Go out and tell people why they should vote the way that you want them to. Money is just a megaphone. If you're spouting garbage, it will just make the garbage stinkier.

    It's funny how the things that are beyond our control are the things that we'd otherwise have to get off our buns and do something about.

  3. Government by Religion on Kansas Challenges Definition of Science · · Score: 1

    I apologize to you, because I should have been clearer. My comparison between the American South and Iran was not meant to perpetuate stereotypes. Factually, in both places there has been a concerted effort by a vocal minority to hijack the State in order to enshrine idiosyncratic religious beliefs, and to inflict them upon the populace at large. California does not fit this description yet. Arkansas does, in this case and the case of the Ten Commandment monument in their state courthouse, among others. Also see Blue Laws on private sexual behaviour, prayer in schools, etc.

  4. Faith in IPU on Slashback: VoIPersecution, Israel, Plug-in · · Score: 1

    With faith, all things are possible.

    The pinkness of the IPU isn't within her. It's within you.

  5. Arkansas vs. Iran on Kansas Challenges Definition of Science · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's funny how the self-reinforcing isolation of the religious types in the American south is similar to the same sort of thing going on in Iran. What other developed country in the world has so many citizens with such a keen attachment to propagating ignorance in their children? If knowledge is power, then what is creationism?

  6. misquote on The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design · · Score: 1
    Although I do enjoy your hysterical conflation of myself as a rational citizen of the US with the idiots on the religious right, I'd like to point out that your quote:

    your own president believes that atheists should not be considered as citizens and cannot be patriots

    is not actually from our current president Bush II, but rather a quote from our former one-termer, Bush I. I'm sure Baby Bush holds similar ideas, but he hasn't expressed them in the same way as his pa.

  7. Testing God on The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design · · Score: 1

    I have God trapped in a box in my lab. I poke Him with sticks and He makes squeaking sounds. In order to dispense food pellets, He has to hit tiny buttons in the correct order. Please advise me of some more tests I can do on Him to prove He created the Universe, as He claims. Also, you may want to hurry, as the button combinations are becoming increasingly complex and I fear He might starve.

  8. Offensive Summary? on Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films · · Score: 1

    Maybe it is because the film review described it as "hot and wet and in the dark?"

  9. Timothy McVeigh on Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure I heard on the teevee that McVeigh was financially supported by Saddam Hussein.

  10. String Theory on Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films · · Score: 1

    I am pretty sure that if you understand the Bible's evocative use of metaphor, it actually supports string theory.

  11. My method on Attempt to Apply Decency Standards to Cable/Satellite Television · · Score: 1

    I like to replace letters with asterisks that don't obscure the word (e.g. fucki*g, assho*e). To me it illustrates how absurd the whole thing is. I'm crazy that way.

  12. What is a police state? on John Gilmore's Search for the Mandatory ID Law · · Score: 1

    Main Entry: police state

    Function: noun

    : a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures

  13. "pointless" difference on Microsoft Admits Targeting Wine Users · · Score: 1

    My dictionary defines "pointless" as "devoid of meaning" or "devoid of effectiveness". I think what you want to say is that the argument is "pedantic," which means like a "pedant," "one who makes a show of knowledge" or "one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge." It is vital that you understand this distinction in your criticism!

  14. I also know I will be modded -1 but on North Korea Admits to Having Nuclear Weapons · · Score: 1

    There really isn't anything that we can't blame on Clinton if we try. Obviously the economy is in the dumps because of Clinton. Obviously people's marriages are falling apart, children don't respect their elders, underpants are exposed one or two inches above the pants themselves, health care costs are rising, the environment is overprotected, and longhairs have too many freedoms, all because of Clinton's two presidencies. I just hope that two terms of Bush2 will be enough to reverse the hideous damage of 92-00.

  15. Math on Gates Elaborates on IP Communists · · Score: 1
    Well, if you figure that the average American earns 45k$ a year, and if they work for 50 years that would be 50*45 = 2.25 million for their working life. So how do you pay a rock star 2.25 million every year unless you can make them "work" for hundreds of years after they die? Companies know that they will be bringing in benjamins after Jim Rockstar is in the ground, so they can shower him with money while he is still alive in exchange. That's the link that the "No copyright after death" crowd is missing.

    That said, I agree that the government should draw a line, past which they are unwilling to enforce the monopoly of IP. I think of it as a balance between enforcement and property protection. The government protects the dollar bill you have in your wallet, but that doesn't take much work because few people are in your wallet other than yourself (insert spouse joke). The government doesn't really protect a hundred dollar bill that you leave on the sidewalk outside of your house. It is still your property, but protecting it would require a policeman to stand over it with his baton, and that's not a pratical solution. Similarly, the government protects your IP to the extent that you are trying to protect it yourself. If on the other hand you broadcast a TV show to peoples' homes and expect them not to tape/PVR it and skip the commercials, and then require the government to enforce this for you, you're unlikely to be protected, even though you still have property rights at stake. This is my understanding and I'm willing to discuss it.

  16. My Physics Career on Physicists Work on Physics' Uncool Image · · Score: 1

    I have a BS and a MS in Physics, and let me tell you, there was nothing "uncool" about studying it! We would stay up past midnight, solving equations, sharing tricks for integration, debating the Kirk v. Picard question, and then of course there were the physics groupies. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what a Michaelson Interferometer, an oscilloscope, and a few drinks can cause*, but I can tell you that it can go all night long! AOOOOUUUU!!

    *data collection

  17. Value of investment on Newsy Numbers · · Score: 1

    But while the life of a 90 yr old has little productive time remaining in it, the life of a child has had little resources invested in it. It seems like the best payback on care would be in helping people young enough to have a long work life ahead of them (20-30) but old enough to have been trained to do a productive job (>15). The caveat is that people are worth more than their economic output, but this is just looking at the math.

  18. Judges? on US To Push Criminalization of IP Violations · · Score: 1
    A very interesting dialogue.

    I find the defendent did not compare the plantiff to Nazis, and therefore the request for dismissal on grounds of Nazism is denied.

  19. Anyone Know Where To Get A Copy? on World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records · · Score: 1

    I held off buying this when it came out for the same reasons that I never tried crack, but lately I've decided that I don't really have anything to do this year. Now I can't find a copy anywhere, except maybe ebay. Anyone know of an online merchant that still has these in stock? Or someone in the Portland area that might have them?

  20. Onion Ref on Where Do You Shop for Server Components? · · Score: 1

    "Dept. of Libel: Drew Carrey Killed A Guy Then Paid To Cover It Up"

  21. Exception on What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It? · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    and it's no one's business what the outcome of that decision is.

    Except for:

    1. The President
    2. The Vice President
    3. Congress
    4. Justices Scalia and Thomas
    5. The South
    6. Evangelists
    7. Closet homosexuals who hate openly homosexuals
    8. Critics of the Founding Fathers who feel that the Constitution is a poor first draft.

    And any combination of the above.

    Personally I believe we need a Privacy Amendment much more than something to "protect" us from gays trying to destroy families or hippies trying to desecrate our flags.

  22. at the risk of unpopularity - Simpsons Ref on GTA Blamed for Graffiti · · Score: 1

    BROCKMAN: Now at the risk of being 'unpopular,' this reporter places the blame squarely upon you, the viewer.

  23. Club v Bat on Federal Appeals Court Sides With VoIP Providers · · Score: 1
    Welcome to the club.. We've had to take the ClueBat to our ILEC...

    Wait, is it a club or a bat?

  24. I know it is time to read the instructions on When Do You Read the Instructions? · · Score: 3, Funny

    when the object has caught fire.

  25. MBA math on Math Skills Survey Shows U.S. Lags Behind · · Score: 1

    22 > 4