Note: These problems do not make religions inherently BAD (as that assumes some sort of doctrine upon which to judge them)
Oh, come on. Stop trying to soften the blow. A "doctrine upon which to judge them" --- how about cold, hard reason? How a bloody good sense? How about compassion and fairness? All that stuff in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) about beheading homosexuals (one case, I know, but a worthy example), yet we have no "doctrine upon which to judge"? Ditch the cultural/moral relativism bullshit.
No religion deserves any protection whatsoever. The individuals practising it have a right to live free of violence, threats, etc. inspired by their beliefs as much as anyone else has a right to pursue a hobby that doesn't hurt others (e.g., a person who's nasty to someone because they believe in something silly is a nasty dickhead; if he beats them up, he's a violent motherfucker who deserves to be locked away). But there should be nothing to stop anyone from laying into a belief system. I'm even less than an atheist --- don't have any religious inclinations at all --- and I don't see any good reason why these Clubs of Mysticism and Superstition should be afforded any more protection than association of fly-fishing enthusiasts.
'every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.' The man in charge halted the test, though - 'He just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg. This test, he charged, was inhumane.'
Lemme get this straight... some military guy, whose country won't sign up to the Ottawa Treaty because of some stupid Korea nonsense, is worried about being "inhumane" to a fucking robot?!
Generally, the/. audience is well-versed in EE and CS but I fear for the physics mis-conceptions.
The/. crowd are actually a very sceptical bunch, and generally have very well-tuned General Bullshit detectors (as the response to the Electric Universe crap at the end of the post shows). --- A Ph.D. student in particle physics.
After a quick look at the "electric universe" site it appears that as long as you are a "mythologist" (wtf?) and you can get a book published, then people should believe you.
They also have a few electrical engineers. Disclaimer: I'm a theoretical physics Ph.D. student, so I may have my biases... but I do see an awful lot of electrical engineers running crank sites claiming to have invented devices and/or theories for all sorts of outrageous things from anti-gravity to free energy to psychic amplifiers. That's not to say all electrical engineers engage in this sort of kookery --- quite the opposite, in fact. I just seem to be perceiving a certain trend.
Walking down the street with lock picking tools in your pocket can and is considered in the United States as a crime (Possession of Burglary Tools)
I believe, in the UK at least, this is called "going equipped". Of course, a true gentleman should always go "equipped" --- just not for illicit purposes...
Assuming the parent isn't a troll, it should be pointed out that it's much more complicated than this. BSD is not a failure and it is not dying: a considerable portion of webservers run on FreeBSD. OpenBSD is considered by many to be the de facto for routing, network services, etc. The fact is that Linux is more in the public eye now. I think this is because (1) there was all that legal wrangling over BSD in the early-mid 1990s, when Linux was starting to take off, that made the latter more attractive. (2) Linux thereby acquired a bigger "cult" following of disaffected, former Windows-using youths (like me!) who were looking for something different; they then grew to love it and the wonderful, larger world of UNIX. This, plus the much publicised Push for the Desktop amongst Linux distros (the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSE), has resulted in it getting much more mainstream media attention. There's nothing really sexy about servers.
Linux is a success, but it is very wrong to call BSD a "failure".
I have to ask, Linux users...when are you going to stop making yourselves so easy to hate?
Don't tar all Linux users with the same trollbrush. There are a very few people on both sides who like to stir the old Linux vs. BSD shit for absolutely no good reason other than to rile the "other side". A lot of us also use a BSD, like it, and see the virtues of both OS families without the need to sling mud. I use predominantly Linux on the desktop, not because I hate Windows, but because I genuinely like Fedora Core. Strange, eh?! I also use FreeBSD on my server because it's a good OS for that purpose and I dislike monoculture. Why fight?
if MS is forced to use a UNIX based OS derivative in order to survive they may not go out of business but it is endgame as far as dominance is concerned.
To say nothing of the fact that UNIX and NT are architecturally very different animals.
Slashdot Mirror
"Sir! There's something on the radar screen. It looks like a giant..." (OK, over to you.)
Let me rephrase. "Hey! AMD! You gonna tell the rest of the world how to program the motherfucker?" There.
No religion deserves any protection whatsoever. The individuals practising it have a right to live free of violence, threats, etc. inspired by their beliefs as much as anyone else has a right to pursue a hobby that doesn't hurt others (e.g., a person who's nasty to someone because they believe in something silly is a nasty dickhead; if he beats them up, he's a violent motherfucker who deserves to be locked away). But there should be nothing to stop anyone from laying into a belief system. I'm even less than an atheist --- don't have any religious inclinations at all --- and I don't see any good reason why these Clubs of Mysticism and Superstition should be afforded any more protection than association of fly-fishing enthusiasts.
Semblance of Normalcy.
Axis.
Extraordinary Rendition.
Wetwork.
Collateral.
Hearts and Minds.
Regime Change.
Digital Consumer Enabledment.
Oh, fuck it: Terminator: The Musical.
Terminator: The Animated Series.
Lemme get this straight... some military guy, whose country won't sign up to the Ottawa Treaty because of some stupid Korea nonsense, is worried about being "inhumane" to a fucking robot?!
Ha, ha, ha! As if the British Royals ever needed a newspaper to make them into objects of amusement and dirision.
However, like p_trekkie points out, the University of St. Andrews stuff is good research.
Assuming the parent isn't a troll, it should be pointed out that it's much more complicated than this. BSD is not a failure and it is not dying: a considerable portion of webservers run on FreeBSD. OpenBSD is considered by many to be the de facto for routing, network services, etc. The fact is that Linux is more in the public eye now. I think this is because (1) there was all that legal wrangling over BSD in the early-mid 1990s, when Linux was starting to take off, that made the latter more attractive. (2) Linux thereby acquired a bigger "cult" following of disaffected, former Windows-using youths (like me!) who were looking for something different; they then grew to love it and the wonderful, larger world of UNIX. This, plus the much publicised Push for the Desktop amongst Linux distros (the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSE), has resulted in it getting much more mainstream media attention. There's nothing really sexy about servers.
Linux is a success, but it is very wrong to call BSD a "failure".
A large dollop of FUD and an iron fist.
You're not one of those people who prefer a nipple to a touchpad, are you?
To say nothing of the fact that UNIX and NT are architecturally very different animals.