You should really read a book before using it in an example. Genesis 4 explicitly states that, when he was banished from his family's land, Cain went to the land of Nod and there were other people in it.
I've tried to find any verse in the Bible which states that Adam and Eve were the only people on the entire Earth, and have found none. If someone can point one out, I'd honestly love to see it.
As for metaphors, why is it that people assume the Bible was written to be literal, but don't make the same assumptions about other belief systems around the world? How is the Bible's take on creation any different than, say, Native American animal stories? Metaphor is the easiest way to convey ideas that can't be explained literally.
To think that any supreme being would give a full literal explanation of the history of the universe to some ancient near-eastern sheep-herder is nonsense. To even think that the most intelligent people in today's world could possibly begin to understand such an explanation is nothing short of arrogant. It would be like giving a full scientific explanation to a 3-year-old when he asks why the sky is blue. If you give too many details, the entire explanation is lost on the listener and, to them, the question remains unanswered.
So the answer is simplified in order to teach the listener what he currently needs to know and can currently understand, knowing that the rest will come later. God's ancient people needed only to understand that God created us, not specifically how or even why.
Christianity, like countless other systems of belief, is full of metaphor to simplify that which man can not yet understand. The different between the six days in Genesis and the Big Bang is just the beginning. Metaphor is always used to explain something that can not, at the time, otherwise be understood.
Man can not directly comprehend divinity, he has a hard enough time trying to understand what's right in front of his face.
Some of them might in 2008, or 2012, or whenever. Man, that'd be fun to watch. 18-22 year olds everywhere "rock the vote" and keep their old teenage enemy out of office.
To illustrate your point full-circle, the reason why current spam filtering will never "win" is the same reason why I suck at chess.
I've never really learned any strategies, just the basic rules. So I always end up playing defensively, trying to protect my pieces. Sure, there may be the occasional attack on the opponent, but the underlying strategy is always one of defense. Playing defensively may stay off defeat for some time, if done well, but it will never beat an opponent.
2 miles is very close for a rocket launch. Unless you want to feel the heat from the engines, you don't even need to be on Kennedy soil to watch it. Just head up or down the coast and pick a spot that looks nice.
Agreed. I saw a launch from Indialantic some years back and it looked fine. Granted, I'm not a NASA enthusiast and just felt like sitting on a beach and seeing a rocket go up in the distance, but it really looked fine.
It mostly depends on what is bringing you to Florida. If you're going for the launch then I'm sure you'll want to get closer, in which case there's lots of open road heading into Canaveral, so just get there early and bring food and entertainment for the day and just park off to the side.
If you're going to Florida for something else and just want to catch the launch (which your post seems to imply) then you don't have to get too close to witness it. It depends on where you're going to be in Florida in relation to the launch site. If you're going to be south of it along the eastern coast, just drive up 95 or 1 or A1A and find a spot to your liking. As long as the view of the northern sky is unobstructed, you won't miss it.
As long as religious doctrines are not taught in public schools and institutions
"Taught"? I don't see why not. "Preached..." That's where it becomes a problem. School should be a place where a student learns "how to learn." Give them knowledge and information and teach them to draw conclusions. There's nothing wrong with teaching religious doctrines (though I'm sure the religious groups will want to limit it to their one religion) as long as the context is unbiased.
For example:
"The Bible says that God created the world in 6 days." (ok)
"God created the world in 6 days. Don't question it." (not ok)
Teaching religion and the doctrines therein is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But teach it in a "religion" class. I went to a Catholic elementary school and this is exactly what they did. Science class taught science, religion class taught religion.
People shouldn't try to teach religion in a science class, just as they shouldn't try to teach math in an english class, just as they shouldn't try to teach gym during lunch. Have all the subjects you want, but don't mix them.
I'm still not seeing your point. Are you arguing that all games need to be based on characters of relatively(*) great historical significance if they are to have any hope of becoming successful? What is the historical significance of the main character(s) from the GTA games, or the Resident Evil games, or Mario and Luigi for that matter?
(*)"relatively" - Your definition of "historical significance" is still a bit vague. You're saying that one figure is insignficant when compared to another. But what happens when you place that other figure in an even greater context? He, too, becomes insignificant. Where do you draw the line?
I think the author just means that, upon visual inspection, one can not immediately determine which is "up" and which is "down." He's definitely right when he says that labeling is not consistent. Personally, I never saw that as a problem. I'd just try to plug it in and, if it didn't fit, I'd flip it over.
I mean, when your only choices are A and B and A doesn't work, well, problem solved, right?
All in all, I agree with his overall approval of the USB standard. Sure, I remember being in school when it was gaining popularity and the "real geeks" used Firewire. But, Christ, I remember buying a special dual-parallel expansion card so I could plug in my 4 parallel devices (most of which had pass-thru connections) because putting all 4 of them on my main board's parallel burned it out or something. USB was a huge improvement.
How about a Muslim themed game? Or a game based on Judaism? Sikhism? Buddhism? No?
I guess I personally don't know enough about those religions to even imagine such a game, with the exception of ancient Judaism of course. But if it's diversity you're after, go for it. I know several Sikh teens whose parents would probably love to replace their GTA titles with a game that promotes their traditions.
So, when do we get the hentai game based on Lot and his daughters?
I hope you don't also want to include the two men (angels, reportedly) who were in Lot's house while the townspeople outside demanded that they be let in to have sex with the men.
It could have a lot to do with the translation, but that's the general interpretation I've seen. Some tone it down by replacing "so we may have sex with them" with "so we may know them" but the carnal implications are definitely there.
Placed in a grand historical context, the life and drama of any protagonist in any video game or movie or book becomes insignificant. Focus that lens of history a bit wider, and the entire history of our planet is barely an instantaneous blip on a cosmic radar screen. What's your point?
On that tangent, I couldn't agree with you more. As a Christian I am personally offended both by the terrible things other Christians do in the name of our religion, as well as by the reactions of others who associate me with the "bad" Christians simply because we walk around with the same book in our hands, even though we interpret the book very VERY differently.
I am interested, though, in your mentioning of great dramatic situations without anyone resorting to violence. Perhaps you can blame TV for this, but as I sit here I'm honestly having trouble coming up with an example that would translate well to a video game. Literature, sure. Movies, easy. But video games? That's a level of interaction not found in other mediums. With the exception of Tetris and the like, can you supply any examples or, conversely, any original ideas?
I'm not trolling, I'd honestly like to know. Not only because such information may prove useful as the small church I attend grows, but I'm also about to become a parent for the first time and would love to familiarize myself with such a game genre that I can give to my child[ren] down the road.
Well, there really is no "best way to convert people," but that's another discusstion entirely.
You do have a good point, though. When one thinks "Christian game" one thinks of the life of Christ himself, who was entirely non-violent (I mostly see him as a teacher more than anything else) and inevitably had to meet a bloody demise here on Earth. (Yes, I believe in Christ and I believe in his victory and that it has simply yet to come to fruition here on Earth, but that again is another discussion entirely.)
That's why I've pointed out the Old Testament, particularly the stories of David, in a couple posts in this thread. That's really where the shoot-em-up action can be found.
Sure, there's plenty of post-Christ violence as well, such as with the Romans or later in the dark ages, but that stuff would honestly be more difficult for a game. What would you do in a game against the Roman Empire, slowly wear it down over 300 years or more? As for the dark ages, you risk offending other cultures a bit too much and the game would get red-taped into oblivion. But who would be offended by the more ancient battles? Does anyone really claim to be descended from the Amakalites these days?
But I know few Christians that ever consider that, since it would be inconvenient.
You know mostly lazy Christians.
Read the Old Testament for the more violent epics. Consider this for a video game:
You are recruited into the king's army. You fight battle after battle, each one more challenging than the last. Eventually, you have more political clout than the king himself because you're such a great war hero. The king then tries to kill you, but his own son betrays him and helps you flee. Actually, I forget what happened between the fleeing and the king's death (feel free to look it up, it should be in the books of Samuel), but eventually you return and are crowned king yourself. You fight more battles, further establish your kingdom. You raise your son to be a great leader after you. Etc. Etc.
If done well, such things could make for pretty good video games. And that's just one character in one religion (or one combined source of a couple religions).
It's not really a question of just saying "this game is religious" that will make it sell. Generally, marketing based on that is best suited for parents buying games for their kids, usually young kids. Thus, such religious games tend to be geared towards a very young audience and, while they do sell, they're not really all that popular.
I would be particularly interested in religion-based games that target a more mainstream audience, as most other popular games do. Let's face it, if you take Western religion as an example, the Bible is full of violent conflict that would be great for a game.
The problem as I see it, however, is in the approach taken in designing such a game. It is often a project taken on by a religious group, not a gaming group. In their eyes, the story needs to be exact, otherwise it goes against their religion. After all, you can't risk letting a child see David actually get KILLED by his enemies on the screen, that would be heresy in their minds.
Thus, the games tend to play out more like a movie than a game, which goes back to being geared more towards small children than mainstream gamers. They have to be able to risk that bit of what they call heresy if they want the game to be interesting. If you're going to play David and fight all your enemies, there needs to be an actual risk of losing if the game is to be at all enjoyable.
I doubt it would have any greater of a noise to signal ratio as any other public medium. Read Slashdot at -1 for an example. Sure, if something is made truly "public" and "free" it will get crowded with egocentric garbage and probably lots of porn. But there will be diamonds in the rough. Those of us who are interested enough will gravitate towards the quality sources and invite our friends. As for the rest of the sheep? Nobody told them they had to watch the images on their magical glowy boxes all day. They're just as free to do what they want as we are. If they are placated by Paris Hilton's latest mind-numbing comment to some idiot with a camera, let them have it.
Actually, I did that once. My girlfriend and I were having a fight because she accused me of not trusting her. As a show of trust and good faith, I told her my main password for important stuff. Shortly afterwards, we had make-up sex. After she fell asleep, I went and changed my passwords.
Not sure if the submitter is thinking along the same lines as me, but I had this same question recently and have just gone with VNC so far.
More to the point, everyone here seems to be saying "just use the built-in networking of X11." This is all well and good, but let me elaborate on what I was looking for when I was researching this myself (again, I can't speak for the submitter.)
Using X over SSH and Cygwin and all that was simple enough, but the functionality I couldn't achieve with it was the ability to "detach" my X session and "re-attach" it from another machine, essentially meaning the X session was permanent and the client connections to it would come and go. Is there a way to do this via the tools you're recommending?
VNC does provide this, but what it doesn't provide is the level of "desktop integration" found in WTS. That is, suppose I copy something in one, I can't paste it in the other. Moving files back and forth, etc. has the same limitations. The 2 GUI sessions basically have no knowledge of each other's existance. Again, is there a way to achieve this with the tools you're recommending?
I'm not trolling or anything, I'm honestly looking for the ideal solution for my own networking needs. I was basically looking for a setup like "screen" on my xterm, but for the whole GUI session. WTS does this beautifully on my XP box, but so far I'm only using VNC on my Linux box.
Would you argue that Orbitz should be allowed to require the user to download and install an Orbitz Agent, which not only allows them to access the site, but also sends "useful consumer information" to Orbitz?
Sure. They're also allowed to put a credit card form on every page of their website and require users to pay $100 every time they click a link.
I imagine your example wouldn't hurt their userbase quite so much as mine (though it would definitely hurt it), but they're certainly allowed to do either of them.
Not entirely. Suppose we all live an average of 1000 years. Now, suppose we spend that time in relatively good health, instead of just getting more and more ancient (think of the knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).
You have a child at age 25. He has a child at age 25. His child has a child at age 25... and so on. You have another child at age 250. Who is the "older generation"?
If you look only at the family tree, your second child is clearly the "older generation" when compared to your great-grandchild. But your great-grandchild could have grandchildren older than your second child. Such discrepencies occur already, but not NEARLY to the extent they would if we were of breeding age for 900 or so years.
So, the question remains, how does one define the "older generation" when people can live forever (or close enough to forever for the scope of this argument)?
Note that this issue is a minor concern when compared to the rest of the points throughout this topic, but it's hardly "a retarded question."
Even if the average user/admin can't *fix* the problem themselves, being aware of the problem is still a step in the right direction. It gives them a heads-up so they can make sure they're not compromised, take other steps to prevent being compromised, and actively seek a patch so they can fix it the moment the patch is released.
For example, if I knew of a brand new critical security flaw in Apache, I personally do not have the expertise to fix it. But I do have the expertise to close port 80 on my router until a fix is released.
To me a better solution than all this jail time for "criminals" would be to at least try rehabilitation programs first.
That brings up a whole other debate, though. What would these programs be? A friend of mine once suggested to me that we replace prisons with schools so we can educate criminals and turn them into productive members of society. The appeal of simply killing my high school guidance counselor instead of taking out $25,000 in loans was immediate.
Honestly, the best "rehabilitation" program I've ever heard of was forced military service. If a convict's sentence is, say, 10 years... well, that's more than the average contract length for enlisting in the Army. We have a draft (though we don't really need it anymore), why not use its powers to rehabilitate criminals? As an added bonus, any further criminal activity they engage in would then be punishable under the UCMJ, which is MUCH more of a deterrent. Honestly, being a prior-service myself (medical discharge, unfortunately), I can tell you that the military is a hell of a career. The pay isn't as good as the private jobs of course, but the benefits are unmatched. Instead of just being removed from society, they'd be serving it. And when their "sentence" is up, they'd have the option of staying in or taking their new valuable skills elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
and all people are descended from them
You should really read a book before using it in an example. Genesis 4 explicitly states that, when he was banished from his family's land, Cain went to the land of Nod and there were other people in it.
I've tried to find any verse in the Bible which states that Adam and Eve were the only people on the entire Earth, and have found none. If someone can point one out, I'd honestly love to see it.
As for metaphors, why is it that people assume the Bible was written to be literal, but don't make the same assumptions about other belief systems around the world? How is the Bible's take on creation any different than, say, Native American animal stories? Metaphor is the easiest way to convey ideas that can't be explained literally.
To think that any supreme being would give a full literal explanation of the history of the universe to some ancient near-eastern sheep-herder is nonsense. To even think that the most intelligent people in today's world could possibly begin to understand such an explanation is nothing short of arrogant. It would be like giving a full scientific explanation to a 3-year-old when he asks why the sky is blue. If you give too many details, the entire explanation is lost on the listener and, to them, the question remains unanswered.
So the answer is simplified in order to teach the listener what he currently needs to know and can currently understand, knowing that the rest will come later. God's ancient people needed only to understand that God created us, not specifically how or even why.
Christianity, like countless other systems of belief, is full of metaphor to simplify that which man can not yet understand. The different between the six days in Genesis and the Big Bang is just the beginning. Metaphor is always used to explain something that can not, at the time, otherwise be understood.
Man can not directly comprehend divinity, he has a hard enough time trying to understand what's right in front of his face.
i DARE you to download a torrent that the seeder is no longer online.
I dare you to download anything over any protocol where the uploading agent isn't uploading.
young people don't vote very much anyway
Some of them might in 2008, or 2012, or whenever. Man, that'd be fun to watch. 18-22 year olds everywhere "rock the vote" and keep their old teenage enemy out of office.
To illustrate your point full-circle, the reason why current spam filtering will never "win" is the same reason why I suck at chess.
I've never really learned any strategies, just the basic rules. So I always end up playing defensively, trying to protect my pieces. Sure, there may be the occasional attack on the opponent, but the underlying strategy is always one of defense. Playing defensively may stay off defeat for some time, if done well, but it will never beat an opponent.
2 miles is very close for a rocket launch. Unless you want to feel the heat from the engines, you don't even need to be on Kennedy soil to watch it. Just head up or down the coast and pick a spot that looks nice.
Agreed. I saw a launch from Indialantic some years back and it looked fine. Granted, I'm not a NASA enthusiast and just felt like sitting on a beach and seeing a rocket go up in the distance, but it really looked fine.
It mostly depends on what is bringing you to Florida. If you're going for the launch then I'm sure you'll want to get closer, in which case there's lots of open road heading into Canaveral, so just get there early and bring food and entertainment for the day and just park off to the side.
If you're going to Florida for something else and just want to catch the launch (which your post seems to imply) then you don't have to get too close to witness it. It depends on where you're going to be in Florida in relation to the launch site. If you're going to be south of it along the eastern coast, just drive up 95 or 1 or A1A and find a spot to your liking. As long as the view of the northern sky is unobstructed, you won't miss it.
I dont even have a senator, you American-centric clods!
That's ok, I have two. You want one of them?
As long as religious doctrines are not taught in public schools and institutions
"Taught"? I don't see why not. "Preached..." That's where it becomes a problem. School should be a place where a student learns "how to learn." Give them knowledge and information and teach them to draw conclusions. There's nothing wrong with teaching religious doctrines (though I'm sure the religious groups will want to limit it to their one religion) as long as the context is unbiased.
For example:
"The Bible says that God created the world in 6 days." (ok)
"God created the world in 6 days. Don't question it." (not ok)
Precisely my argument on this whole thing.
Teaching religion and the doctrines therein is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But teach it in a "religion" class. I went to a Catholic elementary school and this is exactly what they did. Science class taught science, religion class taught religion.
People shouldn't try to teach religion in a science class, just as they shouldn't try to teach math in an english class, just as they shouldn't try to teach gym during lunch. Have all the subjects you want, but don't mix them.
I'm still not seeing your point. Are you arguing that all games need to be based on characters of relatively(*) great historical significance if they are to have any hope of becoming successful? What is the historical significance of the main character(s) from the GTA games, or the Resident Evil games, or Mario and Luigi for that matter?
(*)"relatively" - Your definition of "historical significance" is still a bit vague. You're saying that one figure is insignficant when compared to another. But what happens when you place that other figure in an even greater context? He, too, becomes insignificant. Where do you draw the line?
Never.
I think the author just means that, upon visual inspection, one can not immediately determine which is "up" and which is "down." He's definitely right when he says that labeling is not consistent. Personally, I never saw that as a problem. I'd just try to plug it in and, if it didn't fit, I'd flip it over.
I mean, when your only choices are A and B and A doesn't work, well, problem solved, right?
All in all, I agree with his overall approval of the USB standard. Sure, I remember being in school when it was gaining popularity and the "real geeks" used Firewire. But, Christ, I remember buying a special dual-parallel expansion card so I could plug in my 4 parallel devices (most of which had pass-thru connections) because putting all 4 of them on my main board's parallel burned it out or something. USB was a huge improvement.
How about a Muslim themed game? Or a game based on Judaism? Sikhism? Buddhism? No?
I guess I personally don't know enough about those religions to even imagine such a game, with the exception of ancient Judaism of course. But if it's diversity you're after, go for it. I know several Sikh teens whose parents would probably love to replace their GTA titles with a game that promotes their traditions.
So, when do we get the hentai game based on Lot and his daughters?
I hope you don't also want to include the two men (angels, reportedly) who were in Lot's house while the townspeople outside demanded that they be let in to have sex with the men.
It could have a lot to do with the translation, but that's the general interpretation I've seen. Some tone it down by replacing "so we may have sex with them" with "so we may know them" but the carnal implications are definitely there.
Placed in a grand historical context, the life and drama of any protagonist in any video game or movie or book becomes insignificant. Focus that lens of history a bit wider, and the entire history of our planet is barely an instantaneous blip on a cosmic radar screen. What's your point?
It seems we forget that today
On that tangent, I couldn't agree with you more. As a Christian I am personally offended both by the terrible things other Christians do in the name of our religion, as well as by the reactions of others who associate me with the "bad" Christians simply because we walk around with the same book in our hands, even though we interpret the book very VERY differently.
I am interested, though, in your mentioning of great dramatic situations without anyone resorting to violence. Perhaps you can blame TV for this, but as I sit here I'm honestly having trouble coming up with an example that would translate well to a video game. Literature, sure. Movies, easy. But video games? That's a level of interaction not found in other mediums. With the exception of Tetris and the like, can you supply any examples or, conversely, any original ideas?
I'm not trolling, I'd honestly like to know. Not only because such information may prove useful as the small church I attend grows, but I'm also about to become a parent for the first time and would love to familiarize myself with such a game genre that I can give to my child[ren] down the road.
Well, there really is no "best way to convert people," but that's another discusstion entirely.
You do have a good point, though. When one thinks "Christian game" one thinks of the life of Christ himself, who was entirely non-violent (I mostly see him as a teacher more than anything else) and inevitably had to meet a bloody demise here on Earth. (Yes, I believe in Christ and I believe in his victory and that it has simply yet to come to fruition here on Earth, but that again is another discussion entirely.)
That's why I've pointed out the Old Testament, particularly the stories of David, in a couple posts in this thread. That's really where the shoot-em-up action can be found.
Sure, there's plenty of post-Christ violence as well, such as with the Romans or later in the dark ages, but that stuff would honestly be more difficult for a game. What would you do in a game against the Roman Empire, slowly wear it down over 300 years or more? As for the dark ages, you risk offending other cultures a bit too much and the game would get red-taped into oblivion. But who would be offended by the more ancient battles? Does anyone really claim to be descended from the Amakalites these days?
But I know few Christians that ever consider that, since it would be inconvenient.
You know mostly lazy Christians.
Read the Old Testament for the more violent epics. Consider this for a video game:
You are recruited into the king's army. You fight battle after battle, each one more challenging than the last. Eventually, you have more political clout than the king himself because you're such a great war hero. The king then tries to kill you, but his own son betrays him and helps you flee. Actually, I forget what happened between the fleeing and the king's death (feel free to look it up, it should be in the books of Samuel), but eventually you return and are crowned king yourself. You fight more battles, further establish your kingdom. You raise your son to be a great leader after you. Etc. Etc.
If done well, such things could make for pretty good video games. And that's just one character in one religion (or one combined source of a couple religions).
It's not really a question of just saying "this game is religious" that will make it sell. Generally, marketing based on that is best suited for parents buying games for their kids, usually young kids. Thus, such religious games tend to be geared towards a very young audience and, while they do sell, they're not really all that popular.
I would be particularly interested in religion-based games that target a more mainstream audience, as most other popular games do. Let's face it, if you take Western religion as an example, the Bible is full of violent conflict that would be great for a game.
The problem as I see it, however, is in the approach taken in designing such a game. It is often a project taken on by a religious group, not a gaming group. In their eyes, the story needs to be exact, otherwise it goes against their religion. After all, you can't risk letting a child see David actually get KILLED by his enemies on the screen, that would be heresy in their minds.
Thus, the games tend to play out more like a movie than a game, which goes back to being geared more towards small children than mainstream gamers. They have to be able to risk that bit of what they call heresy if they want the game to be interesting. If you're going to play David and fight all your enemies, there needs to be an actual risk of losing if the game is to be at all enjoyable.
I doubt it would have any greater of a noise to signal ratio as any other public medium. Read Slashdot at -1 for an example. Sure, if something is made truly "public" and "free" it will get crowded with egocentric garbage and probably lots of porn. But there will be diamonds in the rough. Those of us who are interested enough will gravitate towards the quality sources and invite our friends. As for the rest of the sheep? Nobody told them they had to watch the images on their magical glowy boxes all day. They're just as free to do what they want as we are. If they are placated by Paris Hilton's latest mind-numbing comment to some idiot with a camera, let them have it.
Trade pwd 4 sex
Actually, I did that once. My girlfriend and I were having a fight because she accused me of not trusting her. As a show of trust and good faith, I told her my main password for important stuff. Shortly afterwards, we had make-up sex. After she fell asleep, I went and changed my passwords.
Not sure if the submitter is thinking along the same lines as me, but I had this same question recently and have just gone with VNC so far.
More to the point, everyone here seems to be saying "just use the built-in networking of X11." This is all well and good, but let me elaborate on what I was looking for when I was researching this myself (again, I can't speak for the submitter.)
Using X over SSH and Cygwin and all that was simple enough, but the functionality I couldn't achieve with it was the ability to "detach" my X session and "re-attach" it from another machine, essentially meaning the X session was permanent and the client connections to it would come and go. Is there a way to do this via the tools you're recommending?
VNC does provide this, but what it doesn't provide is the level of "desktop integration" found in WTS. That is, suppose I copy something in one, I can't paste it in the other. Moving files back and forth, etc. has the same limitations. The 2 GUI sessions basically have no knowledge of each other's existance. Again, is there a way to achieve this with the tools you're recommending?
I'm not trolling or anything, I'm honestly looking for the ideal solution for my own networking needs. I was basically looking for a setup like "screen" on my xterm, but for the whole GUI session. WTS does this beautifully on my XP box, but so far I'm only using VNC on my Linux box.
Would you argue that Orbitz should be allowed to require the user to download and install an Orbitz Agent, which not only allows them to access the site, but also sends "useful consumer information" to Orbitz?
Sure. They're also allowed to put a credit card form on every page of their website and require users to pay $100 every time they click a link.
I imagine your example wouldn't hurt their userbase quite so much as mine (though it would definitely hurt it), but they're certainly allowed to do either of them.
Seriously, that is a retarded question.
Not entirely. Suppose we all live an average of 1000 years. Now, suppose we spend that time in relatively good health, instead of just getting more and more ancient (think of the knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).
You have a child at age 25. He has a child at age 25. His child has a child at age 25... and so on. You have another child at age 250. Who is the "older generation"?
If you look only at the family tree, your second child is clearly the "older generation" when compared to your great-grandchild. But your great-grandchild could have grandchildren older than your second child. Such discrepencies occur already, but not NEARLY to the extent they would if we were of breeding age for 900 or so years.
So, the question remains, how does one define the "older generation" when people can live forever (or close enough to forever for the scope of this argument)?
Note that this issue is a minor concern when compared to the rest of the points throughout this topic, but it's hardly "a retarded question."
Even if the average user/admin can't *fix* the problem themselves, being aware of the problem is still a step in the right direction. It gives them a heads-up so they can make sure they're not compromised, take other steps to prevent being compromised, and actively seek a patch so they can fix it the moment the patch is released.
For example, if I knew of a brand new critical security flaw in Apache, I personally do not have the expertise to fix it. But I do have the expertise to close port 80 on my router until a fix is released.
To me a better solution than all this jail time for "criminals" would be to at least try rehabilitation programs first.
That brings up a whole other debate, though. What would these programs be? A friend of mine once suggested to me that we replace prisons with schools so we can educate criminals and turn them into productive members of society. The appeal of simply killing my high school guidance counselor instead of taking out $25,000 in loans was immediate.
Honestly, the best "rehabilitation" program I've ever heard of was forced military service. If a convict's sentence is, say, 10 years... well, that's more than the average contract length for enlisting in the Army. We have a draft (though we don't really need it anymore), why not use its powers to rehabilitate criminals? As an added bonus, any further criminal activity they engage in would then be punishable under the UCMJ, which is MUCH more of a deterrent. Honestly, being a prior-service myself (medical discharge, unfortunately), I can tell you that the military is a hell of a career. The pay isn't as good as the private jobs of course, but the benefits are unmatched. Instead of just being removed from society, they'd be serving it. And when their "sentence" is up, they'd have the option of staying in or taking their new valuable skills elsewhere.