What sorts of systems could this be used for in a fighter plane. I could guess as some sort of range finder or other indicator, but I would imagine that the utility would be limited to something of that nature, plus it would probably require some sort of crazy surround sound headset.
All right... I had typed a lot earlier but then I accidentally closed the browser, it's probably better that way because now I can sum up.
First, while it is very nice to inform someone when they don't know something, it makes you look like an ass when you don't tell them what it is. Basically double Mitzvah when you let someone in on your precious knowledge, because unlike money, it's usually more valuable when shared (kind of like love).
Second, I am well aware of American history and our tendency to crack down on civil liberites when bad things happen. I can think of Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, and the internment of otherwise loyal Japanese citizens during WWII, the jailing and attacks upon dissidents during WWI and WWII, and the internment of otherwise loyal muslim citizens aftr 9-11. After at the very least the second (we tend to forget Lincoln's little act in the face of you know, ending slavery and affirming the power of central government over states rights) item (and for some of us the third) we look back and go, "Hey, that was kind of a dumb idea, all it really did was make us look like the people we were trying to fight against." And after all of these we say, "You know what, civil liberties are good things," and then we start apologizing (for the most part) to the people who got shafted.
Hey, I hate, I'll admit it. I hate a lot of things, like people who manipulate and harm others, people who infringe upon inalienable rights (like rapists, murders, tryannical dictators), the fact that there are little kids that go without healthcare, the fact that there are people in our country struggling to make ends meet.
For the record, I kind of admire the Shrub. He's got balls, big brass ones that he likes to let hang out for the world to see. He sticks to his guns through thick and thin, those are some good qualities to have. I don't agree with many of his policies, but I still admire some of his qualities.
As for all of this war nonsense, my big problem is how wars have to be fought, by a bunch of kids against another bunch of kids. It reminds me of a scene from the third episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Zaphod and others are being fired on by two Galaxy cops and they're saying, "We're a couple of caring and sensitive guys, who you'd probalby really like if you met socially."
I agree with trying to free people from the crazy Taliban in Afghanistan and trying to find Osama to bring him to face justice (the kind with a jury). I odn't agree wiht replacing one group of nuts with a group of militant warlords who still opres the peopple, and then abandoning the coutnry when poll numbers start to slide and a more attractive war looms. I agree with getting rid of a crazy man who dumps chemical weapons on people just because they have different fathers and different views, a man who does not let his people express their own views and ideas. I don't agree with lying about the motivations and falsifying a relathionship between him and the other guy, I don't agree with invading without accepting the responsibilty of having propped his regime up and having supplied the chemical and biological agents to him. I odn't like how the people of Iraq were supposed to start getting involved in July (when we thought the warw as going to be a bit longer than a few weeks) and even though we swept in over the course of a few weeks, Iraqis only have a show in their government.
America is a nice country, it's appeal is the freedom and equality that it offers under the law. The idea of America isn't about God or some immutable force that fail to adapt to changing times and new understandings, it is a secular culture that believes in the inherent value of humanity. I believe in an America where the officers of the law (those that make them, those that allow them, and those that enforce them) are beholden to the people and not to the pockets of some giant whose sole concern is profit. I believe in the America of continuous change and
No Child Left Behind...
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Living/nclb_chal lenge030909.html
http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/03/0 3/2003319D22.html
http://www.specialednews.com/washwatch/washnews/fy 2002funding012002.html
http://www.afscme.org/action/weekly_reports/2002/r 020930.htm
African Aid http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/02/050 22002102442.aspbr http://www.rferl.org/nca/featur es/2002/02/05022002102442.asp(all right, that's an oped column) And how long did it take us to put troops into Liberia?
Corporate Aid: After 9-11 bush spent billions to prop up a failing airline industry even while they were hemmoraging tons of jobs. Most of the tax cuts went to heads of corporations and people who don't really pay taxes comporable to say, the poor or the middle class, the elimination of a tax on dividends will go to benefit only wealthy shareholders since the average US citizen makes nothing from dividends but major stockholders and executives make a good deal. Let's not forget Dick Cheney's close ties to Bechtel and that company's growing role in Iraq. As for financial mismanagement, how about starting an incredibly costly war while states are foundering for cash, and then cutting back aid to states forcing them to go deeper into the hole.
As for the lying, how come we havne't stopped terrorism, how come we're still looking for everyone? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where's the bullet proof evidence of collaboration between Sadaam and Osama? Where are the lights, water and order in Iraq? If there was no looting, then why are so many museums and ministries missing so much stuff? More from Ari Here (http://slate.msn.com/id/2079496/)
This is a great page for their lies...http://www.angelfire.com/oz/patriotsforpeac e/chronology.html
It is fair to note however, that Sadaam did at one time posess weapons of Mass Destruction and the US then censored some of that information because we had provided them on Iraqs laundry list of bad stuff (http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/ index.html).
That's really all I have to say on that.
And as Randal would say on the beautfiul but short lived ABC cartoon "Clerks", you're full of hot air.
Well, it's kind of like bundling. You get a bunch of software in a package that's cheaper than if you had bought each piece on by one.
It sort of reminds me of when Warcraft III came out, the Collector's Boxed Set was like $10 cheaper than just the regular game and I'm pretty sure that it still is cheaper. Odd ain't it?
Remember when Dubya said that he was a compassionate conservative who wanted to teach little kids to read, and get our manufacturing jobs back from those 'filthy' Mexicans. Remember when the man could barely speak the english language and was just a jolly little fool who did absolutely nothing besides oversee a sudden plunge in the economy and then came up with the brain dead idea that giving tax money to people who traditionally don't spend money?
I really miss those days. When That's My Bush was on television, it was okay to question the government and even though lots of people were unemployed it was still a pretty good time.
In case you didn't note, this is going to be a rant. Two years and three days ago, a bunch of Religious Conservatives hijacked a couple of plains and showed the US (Succesfully this time) that crazy people mean buisness. The largest terrorist attack on US soil was no longer in the hands of a crazed American, but in the hands of a bunch in another country, and thus things became scary.
The World Trade Towers were chosen because not only did a great number of people work there, and that their destruction would be economically crippling for the area and damaging to the US, but because they were symbols of what the United States stood for.
In reaction to these attacks Americans suddenly took up and saw that all of these freedoms which we enjoy and espouse (but don't abide by in countries where we pick up cheap goods from, like China and the Middle East {that's right, gas is cheap in America, come on Europeans, stand up tell everyone how much taxes impat your gas prices}), allow people easy access to pretty much whatever they want. Yup, apparently the fundamental principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were total anathema to the dogma of security. Benjamin Franklin pointed out that fact and the converse, that a society cannot have both freedom and absolute security.
Esentially, 9-11 has been used to pass a Neo-Conservative agenda of global tyranny and domestic oppression. I emphasize the Neo part, because I know many conservatives, they are wonderful and nice people who have many good ideas. These people, a mixed coalition of reps and dems, are responsible for a campaign of silencing all opposition and enriching themselves and their allies upon the spoils of wars.
It is intersting to note how someone brought up 1984 earlier, it is mentioned in that book how war or the idea of such activity is wonderful at putting large populations into subservient moods. Notice how we have gone from a War on Terror (where we didn't find Osama or even put an end to the Taliban, or stop terror), to a War on Iraq (where we didn't find Sadaam and are busy ruling it like fuedal lords and expending 150+ billion on what was supposed to be a short and sweet little engagement). The American people are being manipulated in a very base manner into thinking that anything but pure agression will get us killed, and that if we vote for anyone but this psychotic faction that we will all die in some sort of hellish confligaration of biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.
I for one see that pretty much everything this administration has done has a negative value. They have done much to obfuscate their agenda and to make them appear to be 'compassionate' but those agendas were never pursued, the heavily pushed "No Child Left Behind act" has absolutely no funding and even if implemented it was only going to require more idiotic tests and dropping out of school. Where is the Aid to Africa? Where are the morals and where is the trust that we were promised in 2000? We have simply replaced blow-jobs and S&L scandals, for corporate patronage, more S&L scandals, financial mismanagement, and corruption. And Ari Fleischer and the rest of the crew lies to us as much as the Iraqi information minister lied to the people of Iraq.
Next year, when the fields narrow we need to get out there and force a change or else things will start to head from bad to worse and we will see freedoms and liberties that we once took for granted picked off one by one all in the name of some kind of security that we will never attain as long as our country remains self-centered and militaristic.
Last year my mother bought the Toyota Prius, as a former poor high school student and current poor college student, I freely admit that I have never owned my own car and usually take either the Prius or Camry to or from school or wherever else it is that I want to go.
My experience with teh Prius was a positive one, though it is a little small and the pickup leaves a little to be desired, it gets over 52 miles to the Gallon. This car is usually driven on highways, but usually once a week it goes into the great city of Boston (which usually causes the mileage of lesser cars to plunge into the red). It is a pleasing vehicle especially for people more concerned with important things (such as fuel economy, environmental impact), slightly less important things (touch panel display, electrical engines, comfortable seats and a spoiler, because even with the batteris it's too light in the back), over stupid things (like how much you need to compensate, how far over the speed limit you can go, how quickly you can die from going far over the speed limit).
I haven't really seen much of the other hybrids, but I suppose they're pretty much the same (at least the Japanese and European ones). Plus, you can pass of being sensitive and environmentally concious (not to mention confident, caring, and a guy with some extra money in his pocket because of the $ saved on gas), and the chicks love it.
Except for teenage girls, so really I'm just making it up. THen again, I might just not be any good at picking up women, even with such a babe magnet. Anyhow, if they're worth getting to know, they'll love Hybrid cars.
Would there be a function where you could get interrupted, I don't mean like call waiting, bujt say that you were sitting in your cube and your buddies wanted to go out to lunch but you were on the phone with some idiot. I mean, it sounds like ka nice idea, but I don't really find that things around are distracting from phbone conversations unless the conversation is terribly boring, or it's with someone I dislike.
Which would mean that if these devices were used to aid my attentnion in such a situation it would essentially become an instrument of torture.
Smacking lightly of stupid...
on
Beatles Bite Apple
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· Score: 3, Insightful
All right, so most people in the computing community probably have no idea what Apple Records are. ANd those people that do look at a lot of record labels when they buy their beatles albums, certainly didn't put the CD down (if they were windows users) and say, "Oh god, apple makes this, it should die as the unholy rot it is."
Clearly there shouldn't be an issue here, but the thing is that the first ruling was stupid. But apple signed an agreement that said they wouldn't intrude on the music business.
That's where apple is stuck, they will settle and they'll continue on as normal. Seriously, no one would confuse the two, primarily because one is a music distributor (through ITunes) and one is a music producer (who has how many bands represented).
If companies weren't companies than this thing would be solved more amicably. As they are however, companies, and one signed an agreement to not do what it is doing. Tough for apple, then again now they probably have a little more money to fight or settle this thing to their end.
Let's look at this, hackers blow up on windows and claim that Bill Gates made them do it by having leaky software. Hackers hit more Linux servers (granted that there might be more Linux servers) than windows.
Now, I'm going to generalize here. That these hackers who like to claim that they're striking a blow against windows and that they have some sort of moral objective to rid the world of Bill Gate's and his corporate greed. But they hit the Linux servers.
To my knowledge there are a great number of linux platforms that one could choose from. And that these companies that provide these operating systems do not rake in cash hand over fist and try to exploit the consumer to a great degree (or so their proponents claim). So why are there hackers hacking Linux, if "Billy Gates made them do it"? The answer is because they're a bunch of little jerks, pure and simple. Sure you can point to some people and say, but they try to help people fix their secuirty, it's still hacking and they are in the clear minority. These people serve no other purpose than to set back businesses a few million dollars and make everyone incredibly frustrated. Seriously guys, you might think its fun, but it's essentially incredibly damaging vandalism, it's a juvenile activity and I think that it's time that we moved beyond it.
Thanks, but that really doesn't show much. I fyou go through a read it, the only legitimate copying purposes fall under fair use which includes the following items (which most people who rip a song off a radio are not doing):
"criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research," Typically fair use is also limited to a portion of the song or copyrighted item and not the entirety there of. I'm glad to see tha tyou can link to a website in general and then force someone else to actually read through it for you. While ripping from the radio might not be a directly criminal offense (which I never claimed it was), it is a violation of copyright law.
Technically Recording a song of the radio onto a tape is a violation of the law. It's just that it can't really be tracked since after all, radio is a wide area braodcast to millions of potential customers with a single broadcast. None of these users are tracked in anyway (excpet for ratings polls) so it really is impossible to get a hold of them, especially since the taping in no way interferes with the broadcast signal (and neither does its interception).
But what does this have to do with kiddie porn. Not anything really. The stuff if totally offensive and wrong from its every fiber of its existence. I for one applaud any law to try and tackle the vile shit. But the real problem is getting at the consumers, it's a sickness and perversion and our society needs to work that out of its system (as do many others) before any laws will become effective because these people will find a way to bypass whatever laws there are as they have in the past (kind of like the war on drugs). But prosecute too, because the people who make this shit are reepy criminals and dserve to go to nasty fderal lock ups where they don't come out.
Apparently you don't understand the following words... The family lives in a city housing project Housing projects are typically not the domain of people who can afford $2000 fines. In many cases that amount of money could pay the bills for a few months, or maybe a month, either way it is an awful lot of money. To say that it is a slap on the wrist and that it is barely an inconvinience for them is to really be sitting up in some sort of ivory tower wholly unaware that there are people in this country where $2,000 is a big deal.
First of all the shame is that the first few posts are by a bunch of idiots with nothing even vaguely resembling a life anywhere near them. The second thing is of course that EBooks had a lot of potential, when I say that I'm really just speaking from a textbook stand point, because as was stated previously, you can't really take and e-book reader or your computer into the tub with you.
On the other hand, when used to replace cumbersome textbooks (disussed here:Little Kids and Laptops) I can see where their utility would come in. What can you do though, sales are low and the demand isn't up there where some people thought it would be.
They said they'd sue anyone, and I doubt that the family can afford attorney's fees against the RIAA, so it really doesn't even matter that Juries don't like it when big companies sue cute little girls, because the thing will never see the inside of hte courtroom.
I would hardly consider every male 18 to 45 to be a well regulated militia, nor would I consider the world that we live in to be the same as in the days of Jefferson and Washington when the constitution was drafted. It is hardly the case that we live in a country of wild border lands where the arms of the law do not extend to where our country men have come to inhabit.
The average person in teh United States hardly has a need to have a firearm, in fact the things are simply a waste of money and a waste of human life. They provide no valuable service to the modern world and are simply tools of pain and suffering.
I would love to see everyone get along together, for people to quit being pricks about everything and have a wondeful picnic, but that isn't going to happen. The only place that these tools of war have in any society is for barbaric forces to have at one another for whatever their reason is, and for others to be allowed to be reasonably comfortable and not have those barbaric forces trying to shoot at them and blow them up at any given moment.
The real issue here is of individual rights versus that of the government to regulate the possesion of dangerous items. What I am saying is that in the current social climate, amidst the general population, firearms have been remanded to the role of a want and not a necessity. As such, they have gone from the role of a protective/offensive item, to that of a recreational tool, like a fishing rod, or play station. In its current status the gun is simply a way of providing entertainment for the user.
The closest analogue that I can think of for firearms (devices that are fun to tool around with responsibly, but harmful if misused) is any narcotic substance (all right, it's a loose analogue). All through the country there are people that smoke a little weed, shoot a couple of cans, and these people are the clear majority. So, the government says that drugs are dangerous because if used in the wrong way they are harmful (and can lead to other crimes), so they ban them. The government also says that guns are dangerous when used in the wrong way (and help to facilitate many other crimes) and they get regulated.{/offbeat part}
What I'm trying so very hard to get at is that I don't care if Joe Blow has a gun, as long as it's registered and he's been through safety classes and a fair screening process that tells us that he isn't a complete whack job. I'm trying to talk about responsibility here, and the way that quite a few Americans like to dodge that whole bullet (excuse the pun). I realize that most gun owners are responsible people, who keep things under lock and key becuase they don't want their kid to blow of their head or someone else's. But when the parent doesn't take those precautions or bother to get involved in their kid's life and just lets the TV they bought watch over the kid, they can't really say that it's the video game's fault because in all reality A) The parent most likely bought them the $200 game system, B) bought the $50 game, C) Bought the gun, D) Let the kid walk over to the highway with the gun.
I am also upset at this judge, for failing to put his foot down and say that just because someone couldn't grasp the consequences of their actions that they should get off lightly for criminal activity. It's like bank robbery, the real crime is that you are depriving people of their earnings (well, the government takes care of that, but then you're taking from the government, which is stealing people's tax money which could have gone to a school or something), just because someone doesn't understand that, doesn't mean that they should get off with a light sentence. It's the same damn thing with shooting a gun at cars, if you shoot a gun at a passing car, you will hit it, you will damage it, and someone will get hurt.
I don't mean to attack gun users. They can own whatever the legal limit and rational thought allow, I'm attacking idiots here, and that's everyone from the kids, to the parents, to the judge.
It is a little off topic but it is also an interesting point. Just look at the Nuclear Arms race, that was giving guns to some really big idiots, thankfully there were enough people with reason to counter those idiots so we're still here today living outside of Vault 13.
I believe that when I went off about how stupid these kids were I mentioned that I assumed that most people who shot guns were aware of gun safety. In fact in my state (MA) and I'm sure in every other state, I'm certain that there is some kind of requirement for a gun safety course of one kind or another. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear, but the point that I though was going to be more offensive to gun wielders everywhere was that for the most part it has become a recreational activity like many others, and that in that we had been de-emphasising what they truly are, deadly weapons. I am aware that like people who play video games, most people who own guns use them responsibly (from the perspective of everyone but the deer), I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
Why can't parents ever acknowledge that their kids were incredibly stupid and that they really shouldn't have had any sort of acess to firearms. Let's look at this...
"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Joshua wrote.
Now, I'm not saying that these kids are kind of slow, but one would expect when you live in Tenesee where your parents let you wander over to the highway with some rifles, your parents would have taught you at the very least that when you shoot people with guns, they get hurt. I'm very certain that when these kids parents took them out Coon hunting or whatever brain dead sport people keep these useless pieces of trash around for (those would be guns) they explained very clearly that the buisness end of the gun should not be turned on other people and that when it was loaded and sighted, pulling the trigger would cause massive trauma to whatever was in front of the business end of the gun.
I'm sorry, but video games companies should start suing these kids and their parents for slander, because the other 500 million of us that played Grand Theft Auto have never shot anyone, and just becuase some retard, with a minimal understanding of causal relationships decides that blasting away with a gun is a good idea, doesn't mean that a game is involved. These people have been disconnected from reality for a good long while and it's time that we lock them away in quiet houses for crazy people where they belong.
To summarize, when you give a moron a gun, bad things happen. It is sincerely time to take people into account for their actions ("Hey kids you killed someone, wounded another, and cuased a deal of property damage, I'm thinking about letting you off on probation") it frustrates me to no end that this is the kind of society that we live in. --- The second ammendment allows for the right of a well regulated militia to bear arms in defense of our nation. --- You know what I just thought of, the core of the problem is that most people who own firearms (unless they're really messed up in the head) own guns for sport hunting. I think that the real root of this problem is that these people have introduced the idea of a gun as a source of entertainment far before video games.
Interesting note, my University uses an online homework system for chemistry, mathematics, and engineering classes. Theorectically there are several ways to write out a given answer (such as 3.33x10^-6 or 3.33e^-6 or 3330000) but the program that we use will only accept one of these answers (3.33e^-6 with some bizzare coding with it to make sure that the subscript and the superscript are there) and then will only take certain other bits the way it likes (Such as -(A+B) when (-A-B) would work out just the same). Even in math computers have problems.
Then again, in high school my history teacher insisted on formulaic essays following a pattern of Opening: Include thesis along with the examples you are going to cite. Body: paragraphs citing examples supporting thesis, following the order you mentioned them in the opening. Conclusion: Restate everything you said quickly. As my AP English teacher pointed out, "That's the most boring crap ever, the next person that does that gets an F"
The overall problem that has been brought out by people in this is that human judgment of the creative side of a work is biased and that this is frequently what is skewed and messed around on any paper. Grammatical rules and spellings are pretty hard and a machine really brings nothing to the table that a teacher can't (besides a more rigid function defined by its programming structure). If we were to use machines as fair arbiters of essay grades then they would have to be programmed to look over the creative content, which is where the teacher has the most discretion (after all, it's 50 points out of 100 for content and then the other half is grammar) so just because they spell everything right, the teacher can still fail them.
More or less, the other problem is that a lot of teachers that I've had like you to hand in hard copies to them. So either everyone starts handing in floppies (oh wait, we don't use those anymore, burned CDs with a 20-100kb file on them) along with their hard copy, or the teacher gets a scanner and software that recognizes text and converts it to such.
There's no doubt that this will just troll for buzzwords, I can see this really screwing up things, after all how often do students complain when a teacher corrects things themselves. This is really just a glorified spell checker then.
Now, not to be one to go and say that machines don't know anything about essays. But it really doesn't seem that efficient of a process simply because whenever a teacher assigns an essay they also assign with it certain criteria that the essay needs to follow. Through their teaching style and what they emphasize in class they also color what a student might put into an essay and they also bring their own bias to the table as to how an essay should be constructed.
As for not dehumanizing, unless you're going to have the teacher go over the papers to see what the grade the computer gave and what grade she thought it deserved, it is dehumanizing. And if you are going to have the teacher double check everything, then it doesn't even remotely become efficient. Whenever I wrtie something out in Word, you know what it gives me after I spell check, a readability score that has its basis in how long the words are and not much else. It's an arbitrary construction for a computer to analyze based on certain bits of math (average word length, number of words per sentence, uses of the word "weasel"). As far as the grammar goes, I have yet to run into a word processor that has been able to work around any grammatical rules, the machines can hardly tell how to conjugate their verbs and what the subject of a sentence is unless the sentence is in th every clear and very simple, subject verb construction.
This is just a colossal waste of time because, at lower levels when a teacher goes through an essay they criticize all of the style and point out the errors and then tell the student what their problems were and how they could be fixed. The only way I could see this being useful is in a university setting where there are 400 students in a lecture and the Professor really doesn't want to spend time grading papers from their survey course when they could be off doing research. But wait, correcting papers and doing grunt work, isn't that what TAs are for?
Slashdot Mirror
What sorts of systems could this be used for in a fighter plane. I could guess as some sort of range finder or other indicator, but I would imagine that the utility would be limited to something of that nature, plus it would probably require some sort of crazy surround sound headset.
All right... I had typed a lot earlier but then I accidentally closed the browser, it's probably better that way because now I can sum up.
First, while it is very nice to inform someone when they don't know something, it makes you look like an ass when you don't tell them what it is. Basically double Mitzvah when you let someone in on your precious knowledge, because unlike money, it's usually more valuable when shared (kind of like love).
Second, I am well aware of American history and our tendency to crack down on civil liberites when bad things happen. I can think of Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, and the internment of otherwise loyal Japanese citizens during WWII, the jailing and attacks upon dissidents during WWI and WWII, and the internment of otherwise loyal muslim citizens aftr 9-11. After at the very least the second (we tend to forget Lincoln's little act in the face of you know, ending slavery and affirming the power of central government over states rights) item (and for some of us the third) we look back and go, "Hey, that was kind of a dumb idea, all it really did was make us look like the people we were trying to fight against." And after all of these we say, "You know what, civil liberties are good things," and then we start apologizing (for the most part) to the people who got shafted.
Hey, I hate, I'll admit it. I hate a lot of things, like people who manipulate and harm others, people who infringe upon inalienable rights (like rapists, murders, tryannical dictators), the fact that there are little kids that go without healthcare, the fact that there are people in our country struggling to make ends meet.
For the record, I kind of admire the Shrub. He's got balls, big brass ones that he likes to let hang out for the world to see. He sticks to his guns through thick and thin, those are some good qualities to have. I don't agree with many of his policies, but I still admire some of his qualities.
As for all of this war nonsense, my big problem is how wars have to be fought, by a bunch of kids against another bunch of kids. It reminds me of a scene from the third episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Zaphod and others are being fired on by two Galaxy cops and they're saying, "We're a couple of caring and sensitive guys, who you'd probalby really like if you met socially."
I agree with trying to free people from the crazy Taliban in Afghanistan and trying to find Osama to bring him to face justice (the kind with a jury). I odn't agree wiht replacing one group of nuts with a group of militant warlords who still opres the peopple, and then abandoning the coutnry when poll numbers start to slide and a more attractive war looms. I agree with getting rid of a crazy man who dumps chemical weapons on people just because they have different fathers and different views, a man who does not let his people express their own views and ideas. I don't agree with lying about the motivations and falsifying a relathionship between him and the other guy, I don't agree with invading without accepting the responsibilty of having propped his regime up and having supplied the chemical and biological agents to him. I odn't like how the people of Iraq were supposed to start getting involved in July (when we thought the warw as going to be a bit longer than a few weeks) and even though we swept in over the course of a few weeks, Iraqis only have a show in their government.
America is a nice country, it's appeal is the freedom and equality that it offers under the law. The idea of America isn't about God or some immutable force that fail to adapt to changing times and new understandings, it is a secular culture that believes in the inherent value of humanity. I believe in an America where the officers of the law (those that make them, those that allow them, and those that enforce them) are beholden to the people and not to the pockets of some giant whose sole concern is profit. I believe in the America of continuous change and
A complete example of a jackass.
l lenge030909.html0 3/2003319D22.htmly 2002funding012002.htmlr 020930.htm
0 22002102442.aspbrr es/2002/02/05022002102442.asp(all right, that's an oped column)
c e/chronology.html
/ index.html).
No Child Left Behind...
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Living/nclb_cha
http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/03/
http://www.specialednews.com/washwatch/washnews/f
http://www.afscme.org/action/weekly_reports/2002/
African Aid
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/02/05
http://www.rferl.org/nca/featu
And how long did it take us to put troops into Liberia?
Corporate Aid:
After 9-11 bush spent billions to prop up a failing airline industry even while they were hemmoraging tons of jobs. Most of the tax cuts went to heads of corporations and people who don't really pay taxes comporable to say, the poor or the middle class, the elimination of a tax on dividends will go to benefit only wealthy shareholders since the average US citizen makes nothing from dividends but major stockholders and executives make a good deal. Let's not forget Dick Cheney's close ties to Bechtel and that company's growing role in Iraq. As for financial mismanagement, how about starting an incredibly costly war while states are foundering for cash, and then cutting back aid to states forcing them to go deeper into the hole.
As for the lying, how come we havne't stopped terrorism, how come we're still looking for everyone? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where's the bullet proof evidence of collaboration between Sadaam and Osama? Where are the lights, water and order in Iraq? If there was no looting, then why are so many museums and ministries missing so much stuff? More from Ari Here (http://slate.msn.com/id/2079496/)
This is a great page for their lies...http://www.angelfire.com/oz/patriotsforpea
It is fair to note however, that Sadaam did at one time posess weapons of Mass Destruction and the US then censored some of that information because we had provided them on Iraqs laundry list of bad stuff (http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004
That's really all I have to say on that.
And as Randal would say on the beautfiul but short lived ABC cartoon "Clerks", you're full of hot air.
Well, it's kind of like bundling. You get a bunch of software in a package that's cheaper than if you had bought each piece on by one.
It sort of reminds me of when Warcraft III came out, the Collector's Boxed Set was like $10 cheaper than just the regular game and I'm pretty sure that it still is cheaper. Odd ain't it?
Remember, in the US 'liberal media' is said with quotes.
Remember when Dubya said that he was a compassionate conservative who wanted to teach little kids to read, and get our manufacturing jobs back from those 'filthy' Mexicans. Remember when the man could barely speak the english language and was just a jolly little fool who did absolutely nothing besides oversee a sudden plunge in the economy and then came up with the brain dead idea that giving tax money to people who traditionally don't spend money?
I really miss those days. When That's My Bush was on television, it was okay to question the government and even though lots of people were unemployed it was still a pretty good time.
In case you didn't note, this is going to be a rant. Two years and three days ago, a bunch of Religious Conservatives hijacked a couple of plains and showed the US (Succesfully this time) that crazy people mean buisness. The largest terrorist attack on US soil was no longer in the hands of a crazed American, but in the hands of a bunch in another country, and thus things became scary.
The World Trade Towers were chosen because not only did a great number of people work there, and that their destruction would be economically crippling for the area and damaging to the US, but because they were symbols of what the United States stood for.
In reaction to these attacks Americans suddenly took up and saw that all of these freedoms which we enjoy and espouse (but don't abide by in countries where we pick up cheap goods from, like China and the Middle East {that's right, gas is cheap in America, come on Europeans, stand up tell everyone how much taxes impat your gas prices}), allow people easy access to pretty much whatever they want. Yup, apparently the fundamental principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were total anathema to the dogma of security. Benjamin Franklin pointed out that fact and the converse, that a society cannot have both freedom and absolute security.
Esentially, 9-11 has been used to pass a Neo-Conservative agenda of global tyranny and domestic oppression. I emphasize the Neo part, because I know many conservatives, they are wonderful and nice people who have many good ideas. These people, a mixed coalition of reps and dems, are responsible for a campaign of silencing all opposition and enriching themselves and their allies upon the spoils of wars.
It is intersting to note how someone brought up 1984 earlier, it is mentioned in that book how war or the idea of such activity is wonderful at putting large populations into subservient moods. Notice how we have gone from a War on Terror (where we didn't find Osama or even put an end to the Taliban, or stop terror), to a War on Iraq (where we didn't find Sadaam and are busy ruling it like fuedal lords and expending 150+ billion on what was supposed to be a short and sweet little engagement). The American people are being manipulated in a very base manner into thinking that anything but pure agression will get us killed, and that if we vote for anyone but this psychotic faction that we will all die in some sort of hellish confligaration of biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.
I for one see that pretty much everything this administration has done has a negative value. They have done much to obfuscate their agenda and to make them appear to be 'compassionate' but those agendas were never pursued, the heavily pushed "No Child Left Behind act" has absolutely no funding and even if implemented it was only going to require more idiotic tests and dropping out of school. Where is the Aid to Africa? Where are the morals and where is the trust that we were promised in 2000? We have simply replaced blow-jobs and S&L scandals, for corporate patronage, more S&L scandals, financial mismanagement, and corruption. And Ari Fleischer and the rest of the crew lies to us as much as the Iraqi information minister lied to the people of Iraq.
Next year, when the fields narrow we need to get out there and force a change or else things will start to head from bad to worse and we will see freedoms and liberties that we once took for granted picked off one by one all in the name of some kind of security that we will never attain as long as our country remains self-centered and militaristic.
Last year my mother bought the Toyota Prius, as a former poor high school student and current poor college student, I freely admit that I have never owned my own car and usually take either the Prius or Camry to or from school or wherever else it is that I want to go.
My experience with teh Prius was a positive one, though it is a little small and the pickup leaves a little to be desired, it gets over 52 miles to the Gallon. This car is usually driven on highways, but usually once a week it goes into the great city of Boston (which usually causes the mileage of lesser cars to plunge into the red). It is a pleasing vehicle especially for people more concerned with important things (such as fuel economy, environmental impact), slightly less important things (touch panel display, electrical engines, comfortable seats and a spoiler, because even with the batteris it's too light in the back), over stupid things (like how much you need to compensate, how far over the speed limit you can go, how quickly you can die from going far over the speed limit).
I haven't really seen much of the other hybrids, but I suppose they're pretty much the same (at least the Japanese and European ones). Plus, you can pass of being sensitive and environmentally concious (not to mention confident, caring, and a guy with some extra money in his pocket because of the $ saved on gas), and the chicks love it.
Except for teenage girls, so really I'm just making it up. THen again, I might just not be any good at picking up women, even with such a babe magnet. Anyhow, if they're worth getting to know, they'll love Hybrid cars.
Would there be a function where you could get interrupted, I don't mean like call waiting, bujt say that you were sitting in your cube and your buddies wanted to go out to lunch but you were on the phone with some idiot. I mean, it sounds like ka nice idea, but I don't really find that things around are distracting from phbone conversations unless the conversation is terribly boring, or it's with someone I dislike.
Which would mean that if these devices were used to aid my attentnion in such a situation it would essentially become an instrument of torture.
All right, so most people in the computing community probably have no idea what Apple Records are. ANd those people that do look at a lot of record labels when they buy their beatles albums, certainly didn't put the CD down (if they were windows users) and say, "Oh god, apple makes this, it should die as the unholy rot it is."
Clearly there shouldn't be an issue here, but the thing is that the first ruling was stupid. But apple signed an agreement that said they wouldn't intrude on the music business.
That's where apple is stuck, they will settle and they'll continue on as normal. Seriously, no one would confuse the two, primarily because one is a music distributor (through ITunes) and one is a music producer (who has how many bands represented).
If companies weren't companies than this thing would be solved more amicably. As they are however, companies, and one signed an agreement to not do what it is doing. Tough for apple, then again now they probably have a little more money to fight or settle this thing to their end.
Let's look at this, hackers blow up on windows and claim that Bill Gates made them do it by having leaky software. Hackers hit more Linux servers (granted that there might be more Linux servers) than windows.
Now, I'm going to generalize here. That these hackers who like to claim that they're striking a blow against windows and that they have some sort of moral objective to rid the world of Bill Gate's and his corporate greed. But they hit the Linux servers.
To my knowledge there are a great number of linux platforms that one could choose from. And that these companies that provide these operating systems do not rake in cash hand over fist and try to exploit the consumer to a great degree (or so their proponents claim). So why are there hackers hacking Linux, if "Billy Gates made them do it"? The answer is because they're a bunch of little jerks, pure and simple. Sure you can point to some people and say, but they try to help people fix their secuirty, it's still hacking and they are in the clear minority. These people serve no other purpose than to set back businesses a few million dollars and make everyone incredibly frustrated. Seriously guys, you might think its fun, but it's essentially incredibly damaging vandalism, it's a juvenile activity and I think that it's time that we moved beyond it.
I can just hear the excuse some girl will come up with to not go out with me on a Friday...
"I'm sorry, I'm defragging my pants that day.
Thanks, but that really doesn't show much. I fyou go through a read it, the only legitimate copying purposes fall under fair use which includes the following items (which most people who rip a song off a radio are not doing):
"criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research,"
Typically fair use is also limited to a portion of the song or copyrighted item and not the entirety there of. I'm glad to see tha tyou can link to a website in general and then force someone else to actually read through it for you. While ripping from the radio might not be a directly criminal offense (which I never claimed it was), it is a violation of copyright law.
Technically Recording a song of the radio onto a tape is a violation of the law. It's just that it can't really be tracked since after all, radio is a wide area braodcast to millions of potential customers with a single broadcast. None of these users are tracked in anyway (excpet for ratings polls) so it really is impossible to get a hold of them, especially since the taping in no way interferes with the broadcast signal (and neither does its interception).
But what does this have to do with kiddie porn. Not anything really. The stuff if totally offensive and wrong from its every fiber of its existence. I for one applaud any law to try and tackle the vile shit. But the real problem is getting at the consumers, it's a sickness and perversion and our society needs to work that out of its system (as do many others) before any laws will become effective because these people will find a way to bypass whatever laws there are as they have in the past (kind of like the war on drugs). But prosecute too, because the people who make this shit are reepy criminals and dserve to go to nasty fderal lock ups where they don't come out.
Apparently you don't understand the following words...
The family lives in a city housing project
Housing projects are typically not the domain of people who can afford $2000 fines. In many cases that amount of money could pay the bills for a few months, or maybe a month, either way it is an awful lot of money. To say that it is a slap on the wrist and that it is barely an inconvinience for them is to really be sitting up in some sort of ivory tower wholly unaware that there are people in this country where $2,000 is a big deal.
That could be very true. I assume however that the RIAA always does the dumbest thing possible however.
First of all the shame is that the first few posts are by a bunch of idiots with nothing even vaguely resembling a life anywhere near them. The second thing is of course that EBooks had a lot of potential, when I say that I'm really just speaking from a textbook stand point, because as was stated previously, you can't really take and e-book reader or your computer into the tub with you.
On the other hand, when used to replace cumbersome textbooks (disussed here:Little Kids and Laptops) I can see where their utility would come in. What can you do though, sales are low and the demand isn't up there where some people thought it would be.
They said they'd sue anyone, and I doubt that the family can afford attorney's fees against the RIAA, so it really doesn't even matter that Juries don't like it when big companies sue cute little girls, because the thing will never see the inside of hte courtroom.
I would hardly consider every male 18 to 45 to be a well regulated militia, nor would I consider the world that we live in to be the same as in the days of Jefferson and Washington when the constitution was drafted. It is hardly the case that we live in a country of wild border lands where the arms of the law do not extend to where our country men have come to inhabit.
The average person in teh United States hardly has a need to have a firearm, in fact the things are simply a waste of money and a waste of human life. They provide no valuable service to the modern world and are simply tools of pain and suffering.
I would love to see everyone get along together, for people to quit being pricks about everything and have a wondeful picnic, but that isn't going to happen. The only place that these tools of war have in any society is for barbaric forces to have at one another for whatever their reason is, and for others to be allowed to be reasonably comfortable and not have those barbaric forces trying to shoot at them and blow them up at any given moment.
The real issue here is of individual rights versus that of the government to regulate the possesion of dangerous items. What I am saying is that in the current social climate, amidst the general population, firearms have been remanded to the role of a want and not a necessity. As such, they have gone from the role of a protective/offensive item, to that of a recreational tool, like a fishing rod, or play station. In its current status the gun is simply a way of providing entertainment for the user.
The closest analogue that I can think of for firearms (devices that are fun to tool around with responsibly, but harmful if misused) is any narcotic substance (all right, it's a loose analogue). All through the country there are people that smoke a little weed, shoot a couple of cans, and these people are the clear majority. So, the government says that drugs are dangerous because if used in the wrong way they are harmful (and can lead to other crimes), so they ban them. The government also says that guns are dangerous when used in the wrong way (and help to facilitate many other crimes) and they get regulated.{/offbeat part}
What I'm trying so very hard to get at is that I don't care if Joe Blow has a gun, as long as it's registered and he's been through safety classes and a fair screening process that tells us that he isn't a complete whack job. I'm trying to talk about responsibility here, and the way that quite a few Americans like to dodge that whole bullet (excuse the pun). I realize that most gun owners are responsible people, who keep things under lock and key becuase they don't want their kid to blow of their head or someone else's. But when the parent doesn't take those precautions or bother to get involved in their kid's life and just lets the TV they bought watch over the kid, they can't really say that it's the video game's fault because in all reality A) The parent most likely bought them the $200 game system, B) bought the $50 game, C) Bought the gun, D) Let the kid walk over to the highway with the gun.
I am also upset at this judge, for failing to put his foot down and say that just because someone couldn't grasp the consequences of their actions that they should get off lightly for criminal activity. It's like bank robbery, the real crime is that you are depriving people of their earnings (well, the government takes care of that, but then you're taking from the government, which is stealing people's tax money which could have gone to a school or something), just because someone doesn't understand that, doesn't mean that they should get off with a light sentence. It's the same damn thing with shooting a gun at cars, if you shoot a gun at a passing car, you will hit it, you will damage it, and someone will get hurt.
I don't mean to attack gun users. They can own whatever the legal limit and rational thought allow, I'm attacking idiots here, and that's everyone from the kids, to the parents, to the judge.
It is a little off topic but it is also an interesting point. Just look at the Nuclear Arms race, that was giving guns to some really big idiots, thankfully there were enough people with reason to counter those idiots so we're still here today living outside of Vault 13.
I believe that when I went off about how stupid these kids were I mentioned that I assumed that most people who shot guns were aware of gun safety. In fact in my state (MA) and I'm sure in every other state, I'm certain that there is some kind of requirement for a gun safety course of one kind or another. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear, but the point that I though was going to be more offensive to gun wielders everywhere was that for the most part it has become a recreational activity like many others, and that in that we had been de-emphasising what they truly are, deadly weapons. I am aware that like people who play video games, most people who own guns use them responsibly (from the perspective of everyone but the deer), I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
Why can't parents ever acknowledge that their kids were incredibly stupid and that they really shouldn't have had any sort of acess to firearms. Let's look at this...
"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Joshua wrote.
Now, I'm not saying that these kids are kind of slow, but one would expect when you live in Tenesee where your parents let you wander over to the highway with some rifles, your parents would have taught you at the very least that when you shoot people with guns, they get hurt. I'm very certain that when these kids parents took them out Coon hunting or whatever brain dead sport people keep these useless pieces of trash around for (those would be guns) they explained very clearly that the buisness end of the gun should not be turned on other people and that when it was loaded and sighted, pulling the trigger would cause massive trauma to whatever was in front of the business end of the gun.
I'm sorry, but video games companies should start suing these kids and their parents for slander, because the other 500 million of us that played Grand Theft Auto have never shot anyone, and just becuase some retard, with a minimal understanding of causal relationships decides that blasting away with a gun is a good idea, doesn't mean that a game is involved. These people have been disconnected from reality for a good long while and it's time that we lock them away in quiet houses for crazy people where they belong.
To summarize, when you give a moron a gun, bad things happen. It is sincerely time to take people into account for their actions ("Hey kids you killed someone, wounded another, and cuased a deal of property damage, I'm thinking about letting you off on probation") it frustrates me to no end that this is the kind of society that we live in.
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The second ammendment allows for the right of a well regulated militia to bear arms in defense of our nation.
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You know what I just thought of, the core of the problem is that most people who own firearms (unless they're really messed up in the head) own guns for sport hunting. I think that the real root of this problem is that these people have introduced the idea of a gun as a source of entertainment far before video games.
Interesting note, my University uses an online homework system for chemistry, mathematics, and engineering classes. Theorectically there are several ways to write out a given answer (such as 3.33x10^-6 or 3.33e^-6 or 3330000) but the program that we use will only accept one of these answers (3.33e^-6 with some bizzare coding with it to make sure that the subscript and the superscript are there) and then will only take certain other bits the way it likes (Such as -(A+B) when (-A-B) would work out just the same). Even in math computers have problems.
Then again, in high school my history teacher insisted on formulaic essays following a pattern of Opening: Include thesis along with the examples you are going to cite. Body: paragraphs citing examples supporting thesis, following the order you mentioned them in the opening. Conclusion: Restate everything you said quickly. As my AP English teacher pointed out, "That's the most boring crap ever, the next person that does that gets an F"
The overall problem that has been brought out by people in this is that human judgment of the creative side of a work is biased and that this is frequently what is skewed and messed around on any paper. Grammatical rules and spellings are pretty hard and a machine really brings nothing to the table that a teacher can't (besides a more rigid function defined by its programming structure). If we were to use machines as fair arbiters of essay grades then they would have to be programmed to look over the creative content, which is where the teacher has the most discretion (after all, it's 50 points out of 100 for content and then the other half is grammar) so just because they spell everything right, the teacher can still fail them.
More or less, the other problem is that a lot of teachers that I've had like you to hand in hard copies to them. So either everyone starts handing in floppies (oh wait, we don't use those anymore, burned CDs with a 20-100kb file on them) along with their hard copy, or the teacher gets a scanner and software that recognizes text and converts it to such.
There's no doubt that this will just troll for buzzwords, I can see this really screwing up things, after all how often do students complain when a teacher corrects things themselves. This is really just a glorified spell checker then.
Now, not to be one to go and say that machines don't know anything about essays. But it really doesn't seem that efficient of a process simply because whenever a teacher assigns an essay they also assign with it certain criteria that the essay needs to follow. Through their teaching style and what they emphasize in class they also color what a student might put into an essay and they also bring their own bias to the table as to how an essay should be constructed.
As for not dehumanizing, unless you're going to have the teacher go over the papers to see what the grade the computer gave and what grade she thought it deserved, it is dehumanizing. And if you are going to have the teacher double check everything, then it doesn't even remotely become efficient. Whenever I wrtie something out in Word, you know what it gives me after I spell check, a readability score that has its basis in how long the words are and not much else. It's an arbitrary construction for a computer to analyze based on certain bits of math (average word length, number of words per sentence, uses of the word "weasel"). As far as the grammar goes, I have yet to run into a word processor that has been able to work around any grammatical rules, the machines can hardly tell how to conjugate their verbs and what the subject of a sentence is unless the sentence is in th every clear and very simple, subject verb construction.
This is just a colossal waste of time because, at lower levels when a teacher goes through an essay they criticize all of the style and point out the errors and then tell the student what their problems were and how they could be fixed. The only way I could see this being useful is in a university setting where there are 400 students in a lecture and the Professor really doesn't want to spend time grading papers from their survey course when they could be off doing research. But wait, correcting papers and doing grunt work, isn't that what TAs are for?