'Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies'
I'm not for filtering but I'm not for this crap either. Sorry but I don't think you are entitled to anything special just because you squeezed a couple out. Raising them is your problem and paying for them is your problem.
I'm willing to spend tax dollars on building and maintaining roads, maintaining a MINIMAL local police force (cops are dirty too many is a bad thing, you want them to be seen not to actually act), maintaining the defensive military AS OUTLINED IN THE CONSTITUTION, schools, libraries, health care (which includes dental and vision), and the building and maintenance of the things required to make all those happen. Anything else, you are on your own.
It isn't all about the environmental gain. Oil is in short supply, at least oil that can be acquired as cheaply as the oil we are burning now is. Coal on the other hand we have plenty of and wouldn't involve any foreign dependence.
From an environmental standpoint, no this isn't a one stop solution. But it does centralize the problems. First, with electric cars many will have the choice to live fossil fuel free because there are already solutions available to live off the grid on renewable energy sources. Second, this eliminates oil as an enemy and allows everyone to consolidate their efforts on energy generation from renewable sources.
I think you are misreading. From your quote of him.
'its own database matching websites to labels or lack thereof'
The labels would be in the database, not on the site. There was nothing in his post that would make this a voluntary system for website maintainers.
'Remember, the database is not a database of sites -- it's a database of labels site owners can put on their own sites.'
No, its a database of sites with labels. For instance, you query www.persiankitty.com and the database would either return no match, or a content related match like 'violence' or 'pornography', etc. His idea is that implementation would be voluntary so I imagine he intended the labels to be a way for parents to fine grain what types of content they wanted to block and what types they did not.
'He's suggesting a standard way web site owners can mark their own content as "not for minors" so that it's easy for a parent to not let the browser on the kid's account display those sites.'
Although that's not what he's suggesting such a voluntary system already exists and is supported by major browsers. It simply isn't government run.
'Right -- those would be the arguments about the irrationality of people *choosing* to use it'
No those would be the arguments of the irrationality of putting in place an abusive system that isn't safe for anyone to chose.
'and passing new laws with that dataset as a predicate would be choosing to use it'
Laws are passed by the same corrupt and abusive government that makes the list. If they make an 'optional' list and then pass a law mandate that you must 'chose' to use it then they are censoring. Its effectively the same as making the list mandatory in the first place and its the effect that matters, not the semantics.
'So that's what you're going to go with? "For the government to give people information is bad because they will use it irrationally"?'
If the information is opinion rather than fact, absolutely. The government isn't entitled to opinions, that is the job of the people. By definition, the interests of the government and the interests of the people are opposed.
'Remind me who's paternalistic again?'
LOL. That argument doesn't really fit. Like laws against drunk driving the choices of some can ultimately affect many in this case, therefore they aren't entitled to the choice. No road that leads to the internet being filtered is acceptable, no matter how you how small the incremental steps, what semantics are used to spin it, or how much time you put between the steps.
Besides that, I'm opposed to helmet and seat belt laws because they prevent idiots from killing themselves and weaken the species as a whole. I never claimed that the average citizen wasn't a completely incompetent moron capable of thinking for himself.
'No, it doesn't. It's merely giving a recommendation. Any censoring would have to be done on the receiver side. Objection to that kind of censoring is ultimately an argument about the irrationality of the people relying on it, since its standards don't match theirs closely enough, but they use it anyway.'
Okay, lets pretend for a moment that this wouldn't be abused and usage forced upon people in the manner I suggested. Remember, a de facto requirement is just as bad as an actual law forcing people to use it. There is no law forcing you to use a social security number either, but I think few people would claim it is actually optional.
Lets say I'm a parent and I want to protect my kid so I download software and use the database. Now even if the contents of the database are published, it is not practical for me or anyone else to take the time to review it so I don't know how closely the list makers standards match mine. I never see the blocked content.
I could be using it for a year and they could start blocking sites that tell the truth about Waco, deciding that anti-american 'propoganda' (aka unflattering truth) is harmful to children. I would never know, all I would know is that some sites are blocked. I'd never see what was actually on those sites. Therefore adding something to the list is EFFECTIVELY censoring that something for everyone who uses the database. It doesn't matter who is TECHNICALLY censoring the material, we are talking about civil liberties and the integrity of society. It isn't OK to split hairs on these matters unless the splitting favors the rights of the citizens.
'No, it doesn't. It's merely giving a recommendation. Any censoring would have to be done on the receiver side. Objection to that kind of censoring is ultimately an argument about the irrationality of the people relying on it, since its standards don't match theirs closely enough, but they use it anyway.'
Apparently you skipped over everything else in my post.
'removing PS/2 ports will allow for even smaller motherboard form factors as well as a marginal cost reduction in manufacture. Besides Model Ms are available in USB flavor, or you could always use a PS/2 - USB adapter.'
Forget space, there are very practical reasons for keeping keyboards a PS/2 Port. The fact is, if I have a functional keyboard plugged into a PS/2 port it just works, no special settings or configuration, no checking for compatibility or support. It works in simple utilities loaded off boot disks and rescue modes and recovery systems. It works to turn on usb keyboard support in the bios. It works to install operating systems. It just works.
As a technician in the field I encounter problems and frustrations with USB keyboards regularly. Microsoft knows this. If you purchase a wireless keyboard from them the mouse plugs into the usb port an the keyboard has a PS/2 connector (not that mice don't have the same issues but you can usually use the keyboard to do what you need). I praise the FSM that most usb keyboards come with an adapter to plug into a PS/2 port. Again, it isn't as if you see many boards these days that don't have usb ports, its because the manufacturers are all too aware of the problems I'm referring to.
'PATA is long overdue to be obsoleted, even optical drives are starting to come in SATA interface configurations.'
STARTING to come in SATA configurations is NOT long due to be obsoleted. I want my technology obsoleted when actually being functionally irrelevant makes it obsolete and removing support for it to be a simple recognition of that fact.
I really don't care that much about Seagate not manufacturing new drives in SATA because I'm not going to buy new drives with an old interface when the new interface is SLIGHTLY faster. What pisses me off is the motherboards that are being shipped with one IDE connection that can't be used for booting and that will for me to buy several hundred dollars worth of new drives that currently don't perform much better than the ones I've got.
'Next to go should be PCI slots.'
Same problem as IDE. You do realize some of us have expansion cards other than video cards right? Most cards on the market are PCI.
'The ghastly PC partitioning system and the horrible kludges that we have to perform to get our PCs to boot are a weight around our necks. But things have been this way for so long that some of us seem to accept it as the natural order of things and question why we should ever strive for something better.'
Great but moving to SATA is going to leave us with the same boot and partition schemes.
'I can understand not wanting to filter the internet itself, but what about if the government just had a database of labels for sites, and one of those labels was "not-kid-appropriate"?'
Still a problem. It gives the government the ability to censor content the government finds objectionable for anyone using the software. That could be millions of people. Plus, once adopted and accepted you would eventually see the same people who are suggesting this suggesting it be mandatory in schools and libraries and later all government systems. Eventually they would start holding people liable if a child saw content they shouldn't have and create a de facto requirement that everyone who might ever have a child access their computer use the database.
Once you give the government a sanctioned way to censor information it will be abused. It is always a bad idea, just as it is a bad idea to give the government ways to track its citizens and their actions (they like to use law enforcement this way).
Yup and don't forget the flipside. Large sites that can afford to buy political muscle will have an ace in the hole once the great firewall is in place. After all, nothing shuts down a competitor like a state enforced denial of service.
'I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.'
Likely. Are you implying that there is some sort of association between the two?
Sorry but you aren't a female, you aren't a 'insert race here', you aren't a 'insert nationality here', you are an individual. You neither get to stand taller due to the achievements of nor spin the failures of other individuals simply because they happen to share a group designator with you.
The thing I personally find most amusing, is that the only valid use of gender as a designator is to classify sex objects. And yet, those who want to be identified first by their gender don't seem to want their sex used to identify them as sex objects notwithstanding the entire biological purpose of having genders and the natural reproductive instincts associated with them.
'Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?'
I don't know. How much does it cost to sit around, examine data gathered from sources like NASA, and theorize all day? Space exploration actually requires developing and utilizing new technologies. That costs money. Besides, NASA is pretty much the only show in town for space exploration. The NSF is one of many government sources of funding for math and physical science.
'NSF includes math, physics, chemistry, cs, all engineering, SCIENCE EDUCATION. NSF should get way way more'
You make it sound like NSF is the only government source of funding for those things. I have heard that DARPA actually represents the primary source of government funding for research.
Logically I would tend to agree that is where I'd expect the problem to be though I admit to not knowing enough detail about how graphics are actually handled to be certain. However, the problem disappearing when using an accelerated X server seems to run counter to that logic.
'As a user of all 3 (and a few more), I must disagree. EVERY operating system has it's little pauses like you describe, but Linux in particular drags the whole time, just in small incremements.'
It may be true of Linux on random system but it certainly isn't true of Linux setup by an educated user. Running a 3D accelerated desktop Linux not only has an extremely rapid response that rivals or exceeds anything you see on OSX it also has better 3D effects than OSX (and Vista by miles).
I think that was the breaking point, with the 3D Desktops like Beryl on a proper card the GUI workload is offloaded to the video card where it belongs. Rendering desktop effects is a rather trivial task for a modern 3D video card and my outdated FX5200 doesn't hiccup.
X always had problems with graphics. Some of those problems seemed to be related to caching. For instance, the icons in menus weren't loaded and cached until the first time you opened the menu. This meant a substantial delay when you first open your menus. In other respects, X is actually very well designed. Unfortunately, its a GUI, in the eyes of most of us, the graphical part of the graphical interface is the most important aspect.
With the graphics heavy lifting offloaded to the video card X can finally shine. The only thing I see still being a problem is that X typical fails to fall back to the sane default low quality display that most GUIs use when the display settings are incorrect. X also fails to detect displays on the fly. You still can't unplug your monitor, plug in a new monitor, and reboot the computer and have everything work. That is a big minus.
Some people don't realize how huge a hit this is. That means you can't bring your computer to a PC repair shop and have them fix it and give it back to you without any major hurdles. They would have to connect the tower to their display to work on it and the system would have to detect your settings when you plugged it back in (because it certainly isn't safe to assume you have enough knowledge of computers to configure one yourself and most users shouldn't be trying).
There is nothing dishonest about making a deal despite believing the other party won't honor it.
'planning to steal the sword and strand them in Gringotts'
The deal was that Harry would give the Goblin the sword after the goblin got them into the vault. They were in the vault thus the sword was his to take, there was nothing in the deal about getting them out again.
'It wasn't as fair and square as that. Harry was under the impression that the sword truely belonged to a goblin when he agreed to give it to him in exchange for helping breach Gringotts.'
Yes but that is a legal and philosophical distinction. It isn't as if the idea that the item belongs to the crafter is incorrect it is just a difference of opinion. It isn't as if the goblin tricked Harry into making the agreement under false pretenses. According to Goblin law and philosophy the item does belong to the goblins. If Harry's deal wasn't legitimate because of his ignorance, then it is fair to say that the deals to purchase items from the goblins weren't legitimate either because of their ignorance of the human philosophy. The goblins never intended the prices paid to be exchange for a permanent transferrence of property.
Microsoft covers you for $5 and not a penny more. That is actually what you get in exchange for agreeing to the terms of the EULA. For a long time their EULA's weren't technically valid because they didn't actually give you anything and something of value must be exchanged for a valid contract.
Yes, the computer's conciousness isn't the hardware, it is the hardware STATE. Perhaps one day we will have enough of an understanding of the hardware and software in our brains to copy it in the same way.
The point is really that isn't a magic spirit that exists seperately.
'look, ummm... I dunno how to break it to you...but your computer...you see...doesn't have a personality...I know, I know...'
look, ummm... I dunno how to break it to you... but you don't have a personality either... your ummm... just a biological counterpart... I know, I know...
Slashdot Mirror
'Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies'
I'm not for filtering but I'm not for this crap either. Sorry but I don't think you are entitled to anything special just because you squeezed a couple out. Raising them is your problem and paying for them is your problem.
I'm willing to spend tax dollars on building and maintaining roads, maintaining a MINIMAL local police force (cops are dirty too many is a bad thing, you want them to be seen not to actually act), maintaining the defensive military AS OUTLINED IN THE CONSTITUTION, schools, libraries, health care (which includes dental and vision), and the building and maintenance of the things required to make all those happen. Anything else, you are on your own.
It isn't all about the environmental gain. Oil is in short supply, at least oil that can be acquired as cheaply as the oil we are burning now is. Coal on the other hand we have plenty of and wouldn't involve any foreign dependence.
From an environmental standpoint, no this isn't a one stop solution. But it does centralize the problems. First, with electric cars many will have the choice to live fossil fuel free because there are already solutions available to live off the grid on renewable energy sources. Second, this eliminates oil as an enemy and allows everyone to consolidate their efforts on energy generation from renewable sources.
I think you are misreading. From your quote of him.
'its own database matching websites to labels or lack thereof'
The labels would be in the database, not on the site. There was nothing in his post that would make this a voluntary system for website maintainers.
'Remember, the database is not a database of sites -- it's a database of labels site owners can put on their own sites.'
No, its a database of sites with labels. For instance, you query www.persiankitty.com and the database would either return no match, or a content related match like 'violence' or 'pornography', etc. His idea is that implementation would be voluntary so I imagine he intended the labels to be a way for parents to fine grain what types of content they wanted to block and what types they did not.
'He's suggesting a standard way web site owners can mark their own content as "not for minors" so that it's easy for a parent to not let the browser on the kid's account display those sites.'
Although that's not what he's suggesting such a voluntary system already exists and is supported by major browsers. It simply isn't government run.
'Has there ever been anything to see in ATI's Linux drivers?'
Or more to the point, has there ever been anything you could see WITH ATI's Linux drivers?
'Right -- those would be the arguments about the irrationality of people *choosing* to use it'
No those would be the arguments of the irrationality of putting in place an abusive system that isn't safe for anyone to chose.
'and passing new laws with that dataset as a predicate would be choosing to use it'
Laws are passed by the same corrupt and abusive government that makes the list. If they make an 'optional' list and then pass a law mandate that you must 'chose' to use it then they are censoring. Its effectively the same as making the list mandatory in the first place and its the effect that matters, not the semantics.
'So that's what you're going to go with? "For the government to give people information is bad because they will use it irrationally"?'
If the information is opinion rather than fact, absolutely. The government isn't entitled to opinions, that is the job of the people. By definition, the interests of the government and the interests of the people are opposed.
'Remind me who's paternalistic again?'
LOL. That argument doesn't really fit. Like laws against drunk driving the choices of some can ultimately affect many in this case, therefore they aren't entitled to the choice. No road that leads to the internet being filtered is acceptable, no matter how you how small the incremental steps, what semantics are used to spin it, or how much time you put between the steps.
Besides that, I'm opposed to helmet and seat belt laws because they prevent idiots from killing themselves and weaken the species as a whole. I never claimed that the average citizen wasn't a completely incompetent moron capable of thinking for himself.
'No, it doesn't. It's merely giving a recommendation. Any censoring would have to be done on the receiver side. Objection to that kind of censoring is ultimately an argument about the irrationality of the people relying on it, since its standards don't match theirs closely enough, but they use it anyway.'
Okay, lets pretend for a moment that this wouldn't be abused and usage forced upon people in the manner I suggested. Remember, a de facto requirement is just as bad as an actual law forcing people to use it. There is no law forcing you to use a social security number either, but I think few people would claim it is actually optional.
Lets say I'm a parent and I want to protect my kid so I download software and use the database. Now even if the contents of the database are published, it is not practical for me or anyone else to take the time to review it so I don't know how closely the list makers standards match mine. I never see the blocked content.
I could be using it for a year and they could start blocking sites that tell the truth about Waco, deciding that anti-american 'propoganda' (aka unflattering truth) is harmful to children. I would never know, all I would know is that some sites are blocked. I'd never see what was actually on those sites. Therefore adding something to the list is EFFECTIVELY censoring that something for everyone who uses the database. It doesn't matter who is TECHNICALLY censoring the material, we are talking about civil liberties and the integrity of society. It isn't OK to split hairs on these matters unless the splitting favors the rights of the citizens.
'No, it doesn't. It's merely giving a recommendation. Any censoring would have to be done on the receiver side. Objection to that kind of censoring is ultimately an argument about the irrationality of the people relying on it, since its standards don't match theirs closely enough, but they use it anyway.'
Apparently you skipped over everything else in my post.
'removing PS/2 ports will allow for even smaller motherboard form factors as well as a marginal cost reduction in manufacture. Besides Model Ms are available in USB flavor, or you could always use a PS/2 - USB adapter.'
Forget space, there are very practical reasons for keeping keyboards a PS/2 Port. The fact is, if I have a functional keyboard plugged into a PS/2 port it just works, no special settings or configuration, no checking for compatibility or support. It works in simple utilities loaded off boot disks and rescue modes and recovery systems. It works to turn on usb keyboard support in the bios. It works to install operating systems. It just works.
As a technician in the field I encounter problems and frustrations with USB keyboards regularly. Microsoft knows this. If you purchase a wireless keyboard from them the mouse plugs into the usb port an the keyboard has a PS/2 connector (not that mice don't have the same issues but you can usually use the keyboard to do what you need). I praise the FSM that most usb keyboards come with an adapter to plug into a PS/2 port. Again, it isn't as if you see many boards these days that don't have usb ports, its because the manufacturers are all too aware of the problems I'm referring to.
'PATA is long overdue to be obsoleted, even optical drives are starting to come in SATA interface configurations.'
STARTING to come in SATA configurations is NOT long due to be obsoleted. I want my technology obsoleted when actually being functionally irrelevant makes it obsolete and removing support for it to be a simple recognition of that fact.
I really don't care that much about Seagate not manufacturing new drives in SATA because I'm not going to buy new drives with an old interface when the new interface is SLIGHTLY faster. What pisses me off is the motherboards that are being shipped with one IDE connection that can't be used for booting and that will for me to buy several hundred dollars worth of new drives that currently don't perform much better than the ones I've got.
'Next to go should be PCI slots.'
Same problem as IDE. You do realize some of us have expansion cards other than video cards right? Most cards on the market are PCI.
'The ghastly PC partitioning system and the horrible kludges that we have to perform to get our PCs to boot are a weight around our necks. But things have been this way for so long that some of us seem to accept it as the natural order of things and question why we should ever strive for something better.'
Great but moving to SATA is going to leave us with the same boot and partition schemes.
'I can understand not wanting to filter the internet itself, but what about if the government just had a database of labels for sites, and one of those labels was "not-kid-appropriate"?'
Still a problem. It gives the government the ability to censor content the government finds objectionable for anyone using the software. That could be millions of people. Plus, once adopted and accepted you would eventually see the same people who are suggesting this suggesting it be mandatory in schools and libraries and later all government systems. Eventually they would start holding people liable if a child saw content they shouldn't have and create a de facto requirement that everyone who might ever have a child access their computer use the database.
Once you give the government a sanctioned way to censor information it will be abused. It is always a bad idea, just as it is a bad idea to give the government ways to track its citizens and their actions (they like to use law enforcement this way).
Yup and don't forget the flipside. Large sites that can afford to buy political muscle will have an ace in the hole once the great firewall is in place. After all, nothing shuts down a competitor like a state enforced denial of service.
They have something like this in China right? Filtering technology to protect their populous and children from material the government deems immoral?
'I AM a women'
uh huh
'I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.'
Likely. Are you implying that there is some sort of association between the two?
Sorry but you aren't a female, you aren't a 'insert race here', you aren't a 'insert nationality here', you are an individual. You neither get to stand taller due to the achievements of nor spin the failures of other individuals simply because they happen to share a group designator with you.
The thing I personally find most amusing, is that the only valid use of gender as a designator is to classify sex objects. And yet, those who want to be identified first by their gender don't seem to want their sex used to identify them as sex objects notwithstanding the entire biological purpose of having genders and the natural reproductive instincts associated with them.
'Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?'
I don't know. How much does it cost to sit around, examine data gathered from sources like NASA, and theorize all day? Space exploration actually requires developing and utilizing new technologies. That costs money. Besides, NASA is pretty much the only show in town for space exploration. The NSF is one of many government sources of funding for math and physical science.
'NSF includes math, physics, chemistry, cs, all engineering, SCIENCE EDUCATION. NSF should get way way more'
You make it sound like NSF is the only government source of funding for those things. I have heard that DARPA actually represents the primary source of government funding for research.
You can't forget the top research spender, DARPA.
Logically I would tend to agree that is where I'd expect the problem to be though I admit to not knowing enough detail about how graphics are actually handled to be certain. However, the problem disappearing when using an accelerated X server seems to run counter to that logic.
'As a user of all 3 (and a few more), I must disagree. EVERY operating system has it's little pauses like you describe, but Linux in particular drags the whole time, just in small incremements.'
It may be true of Linux on random system but it certainly isn't true of Linux setup by an educated user. Running a 3D accelerated desktop Linux not only has an extremely rapid response that rivals or exceeds anything you see on OSX it also has better 3D effects than OSX (and Vista by miles).
I think that was the breaking point, with the 3D Desktops like Beryl on a proper card the GUI workload is offloaded to the video card where it belongs. Rendering desktop effects is a rather trivial task for a modern 3D video card and my outdated FX5200 doesn't hiccup.
X always had problems with graphics. Some of those problems seemed to be related to caching. For instance, the icons in menus weren't loaded and cached until the first time you opened the menu. This meant a substantial delay when you first open your menus. In other respects, X is actually very well designed. Unfortunately, its a GUI, in the eyes of most of us, the graphical part of the graphical interface is the most important aspect.
With the graphics heavy lifting offloaded to the video card X can finally shine. The only thing I see still being a problem is that X typical fails to fall back to the sane default low quality display that most GUIs use when the display settings are incorrect. X also fails to detect displays on the fly. You still can't unplug your monitor, plug in a new monitor, and reboot the computer and have everything work. That is a big minus.
Some people don't realize how huge a hit this is. That means you can't bring your computer to a PC repair shop and have them fix it and give it back to you without any major hurdles. They would have to connect the tower to their display to work on it and the system would have to detect your settings when you plugged it back in (because it certainly isn't safe to assume you have enough knowledge of computers to configure one yourself and most users shouldn't be trying).
I'm gonna pass on this one. TYVM. I've seen too many batteries overloaded for comfort.
'assume that Harry would act in bad faith'
There is nothing dishonest about making a deal despite believing the other party won't honor it.
'planning to steal the sword and strand them in Gringotts'
The deal was that Harry would give the Goblin the sword after the goblin got them into the vault. They were in the vault thus the sword was his to take, there was nothing in the deal about getting them out again.
'It wasn't as fair and square as that. Harry was under the impression that the sword truely belonged to a goblin when he agreed to give it to him in exchange for helping breach Gringotts.'
Yes but that is a legal and philosophical distinction. It isn't as if the idea that the item belongs to the crafter is incorrect it is just a difference of opinion. It isn't as if the goblin tricked Harry into making the agreement under false pretenses. According to Goblin law and philosophy the item does belong to the goblins. If Harry's deal wasn't legitimate because of his ignorance, then it is fair to say that the deals to purchase items from the goblins weren't legitimate either because of their ignorance of the human philosophy. The goblins never intended the prices paid to be exchange for a permanent transferrence of property.
Microsoft covers you for $5 and not a penny more. That is actually what you get in exchange for agreeing to the terms of the EULA. For a long time their EULA's weren't technically valid because they didn't actually give you anything and something of value must be exchanged for a valid contract.
'Software and hardware are distinct and so are mind and brain.'
Yes, software is a logical abstraction. I don't think anyone is disputing that.
Yes, the computer's conciousness isn't the hardware, it is the hardware STATE. Perhaps one day we will have enough of an understanding of the hardware and software in our brains to copy it in the same way.
The point is really that isn't a magic spirit that exists seperately.
'look, ummm... I dunno how to break it to you...but your computer...you see...doesn't have a personality...I know, I know...'
look, ummm... I dunno how to break it to you... but you don't have a personality either... your ummm... just a biological counterpart... I know, I know...