Who could have guessed that the Germans would pass through impassable terrain and precisely hit the single weak point between the strong Maginot Line and the first-string armies in Belgium?
I feel your pain. Say you want to search a logfile for non-zero errors. Easy: "error=[^0]".
Now assume that you want to search for "error=" that do not end on one of "handled", "expected", "not found". This is impossible*, and if you want to google why, you need to know that it is called a negative look-ahead assertion.
*As you can see in the link, I had a problem, and thought "I'll use regular expression". Then I had two solvable problems that needed regular expressions.
The tagline of Neverwinter 2 "Everything you do has a meaning" or something like that (Too busy to look it up). We never thought Bioware could actually implement that, but they shouldn't lie on the box and claim that they could.
The game has already been cracked (see e.g. the pirate bay), so the issue of delaying is pretty much over. I would like to buy Bioshock, but "knowingly installing a rootkit on a computer I use for work" would probably make me liable for damages in case the company I worked for got hacked.
I would not mind paying extra for a non-DRM version of Bioshock, but it seems I am out of luck.
The Romans needed 200 years of constant warfare to pacify Hispania, in spite of using the genocidal means the parent describes. The Roman republic was characterized by an incredible degree of persistence in military matters. This was how they won their wars, not by superior military leadership/organization/technology.
From wikipedia: Allegations exhibiting several of the following features are candidates for classification as conspiracy theories. Confidence in such classification improves the more such features are exhibited:
1. Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence;
As far as I know, there has never been any evidence of "the powers that be" shutting down research on cold fusion.
2. Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact;
Free energy (as cold fusion promises) would definately change history.
3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Quote: The powers that be do not play by any rules, and anything or anyone who threatens their power are fair game.
4. Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators;
Not really related
5. Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators;
I know several researchers, which claim that the current theories forbid cold fusion. Why did they tell me that? Thousands of researchers, (most of them very idealistic) must be stopped by "the powers that be". A staggering task.
6. Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning;
Not relevant (unless someone can point to an instance of cold fusion researches being stopped).
7. Appeals to 'common sense';
Not relevant (but you could say that the experiments which are taken to imply cold fusion suffers from this).
8. Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies;
Not really sure about this one.
9. Is produced and circulated by 'outsiders', often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review;
Posted on slashdot. Enough said.
10. Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science;
Not relevant.
11. Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities;
Most serious researchers ignore cold fusion, because current theories forbid it.
12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
I suppose this is true, but I have not gone through the rebuttals.
13. The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody;
Every nuclear physicist in the whole world is part of the conspiracy, obviously. The practical issues in organising this requires that a lot of people are involved.
14. The conspiracy centers on the "usual suspects";
"The powers that be" is a vague term, but definately one of the usual suspects.
the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe.
While this is true, it is unfortunately just a tautology: It is possible to have a low unemployment and many people working in the welfare system by offering the unemployed a job in the public sector.
(...)from a purely quantitative perspective, the Swedes have a better standard of living than a purely capitalist United States(...)
The way to measure wealth quantitavely is GNP. Last year, I remember reading that if Sweden was admitted into the USA, it would be the third-poorest state, and that swedes in general were poorer than blacks in USA.
Denmark is far better off than Sweden, though. If you ask me, a major factor in what makes a country rich is the flexibility on the job market, where Denmark rates exceptionally high.
Actually, Jyllands-posten is the largest danish newspaper, though with several others coming close.
The newspaper is generally not considered extreme, but some of it's journalists are quite right-wing (obviously, including Flemming Rose), since it is the most right-wing newspaper in Denmark (excluding fringe-newspapers).
In danish journalistic tradition, most newspapers employ journalists without too much regard to their political stance. There are also journalists at Jyllands-posten who would be considered centrists.
The parents point and his question are still valid, in my oppinion.
Extent Foreign sites Research into the mainland Chinese Internet censorship has shown that blocked websites include:
* News from many foreign sources, especially websites which include forums. BBC News, Hong Kong News sources are heavily censored.
* Websites, news and information about
o Tibetan independence
o Falun Gong
o Dalai Lama (Restricted)
o Taiwan and Taiwan independence
o Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
o Human rights, freedom of speech, democracy
o Hong Kong. Yahoo Hong Kong is blocked.
o Pornography
o Religious websites, The official website of the Catholic Church is blocked.
* Sites critical of top Chinese leaders or those expressing views different from the Chinese government
* Overseas Chinese websites
Technical sites
* Wikimedia: Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, have recently been blocked for the third time. See Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China.
* SourceForge: SourceForge was blocked in 2002. The blocking was released in 2003, but as of January 2006, it may have been blocked again.
* FreeBSD.org: FreeBSD.org was banned since December 2005. [1]
Free Internet services
* geocities
* zoneedit (free DNS service, one of the servers blocked)
* blogspot (however, blogger.com is not blocked)
A problem I've often encountered is wanting to submit a story, but lacking the writing skills to make a summary that doesn't show too obviously that english isn't my first language. (That sentence was obscured on purpose.) This is especially true about polls. I've been wanting to submit a poll, something along the following lines:
I think such a poll could spawn some interesting comments, but I'm no expert on the matter so I don't know if the options are sensible, nor do I have much confidence in my sense of humor. Certainly, if other people could see it before it was posted, they could contribute significantly. Any suggestions for how to solve this problem? I'm quite opposed to the idea of sending "raw" submissions to the editors, because stupid submissions reflect poorly on slashdot and more importantly, me.
Please accept my apologies. The text from wikipedia was incorrect, I should have gone to the conventions instead. The Geneva conventions does in general bind western forces in their treatment of the captured.
Art. 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[ (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
I can see your point in this. A literal interpretation of the article means that the requirements in (2) can be circumvented by waving your hands and saying: "I'm a part of the armed forces", in effect invalidating (2) completely. (As an aside, I'm not sure if Al-Quida did this.)
So, even if your interpretation seems closer to the text, I'd wager a guess that the writers simply found it evident that all armed forces would satisfy the requirements in (2). The convention was written right after WWII, in which most saboteurs, infiltrators and spies where shot. I do not believe many countries would have signed the convention if it meant outlawing the execution of spies in times of war.
If my memory serves me (I should stress that I am not a lawyer nor particularily knowledgable of this subject), the conventions do not in other ways than this article deal with the grey area between a soldier and a civilian. Your claim that everyone who's not a soldier is a civilian, even if they carry weapons and shoot at soldiers, does strike me as surprising. Could you find a citation for this?
During WWII, a lot of fighting had been in the grey zone between soldier and civilian. It cannot have been an oversight that these are not covered, more likely it's a deliberate attempt to force people to either satisfy the article, or stay completely out of the conflict.
I agree with the last part of your post, about the insurgents. Those you listed deserve the full protection of the Geneva Conventions.
The situation is more complicated that this, so calling people dimwits because they aren't experts will get us nowhere.
You wrote: "the Geneva Conventions [...] apply to all signatories regardless if they are fighting a non-signarory, as long as they are at "war""
According to this
article 2 of the third geneva convention states: That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until such time as the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention. "
This means that if the enemy targets civilians or otherwise gravely breaks the Geneva convention, they forfeit it's protection.
Take a look at the rest of the convention, specifically article 4 and wikipedia's discussion on article 5. The argument of the american government looks quite persuasive as presented. GC3 explicitly states you only get protection if you wear uniform, so why should one demand protection if you don't wear uniform?
How many here have ever tried to revert a page after vandalism has happened?
Try doing it *without* first searching for either "vandalism" or "revert" (The average visitor doesn't know these terms) for hints on how to do it.
The process is horribly complicated, unintuitive and timeconsuming. I am no expert on user interface design, I should add, so this is just my uninformed oppinion. Perhaps adding a "I think vandalism has happened here" link would help?
Slashdot Mirror
Who could have guessed that the Germans would pass through impassable terrain and precisely hit the single weak point between the strong Maginot Line and the first-string armies in Belgium?
Actually, the germans hit what was considered to be the strongest point of the belgian fortification line - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Eben-Emael .
I believe the Dilbert version has the developer saying something like "I could develop a screensaver to show fish on the computer" in the end. :)
Say you want to search a logfile for non-zero errors. Easy: "error=[^0]". Now assume that you want to search for "error=" that do not end on one of "handled", "expected", "not found". This is impossible*, and if you want to google why, you need to know that it is called a negative look-ahead assertion.
*As you can see in the link, I had a problem, and thought "I'll use regular expression". Then I had two solvable problems that needed regular expressions.
May I suggest that you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic and edit the "ridiculous" article to be more in line with facts.
Yeah, my bad.
The tagline of Neverwinter 2 "Everything you do has a meaning" or something like that (Too busy to look it up). We never thought Bioware could actually implement that, but they shouldn't lie on the box and claim that they could.
Leptons, actually.
The game has already been cracked (see e.g. the pirate bay), so the issue of delaying is pretty much over. I would like to buy Bioshock, but "knowingly installing a rootkit on a computer I use for work" would probably make me liable for damages in case the company I worked for got hacked. I would not mind paying extra for a non-DRM version of Bioshock, but it seems I am out of luck.
You must be new here
Warnings about such shocksites are legitimate.
The Romans needed 200 years of constant warfare to pacify Hispania, in spite of using the genocidal means the parent describes. The Roman republic was characterized by an incredible degree of persistence in military matters. This was how they won their wars, not by superior military leadership/organization/technology.
Woohoo! My first stalker! ;)
"Thank God for cold fusion"
-Terran marine, getting a can of beer from a nuclear device
You're probably thinking about this.
Black Sheep Wall
- Osama
From wikipedia:
Allegations exhibiting several of the following features are candidates for classification as conspiracy theories. Confidence in such classification improves the more such features are exhibited:
1. Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence;
As far as I know, there has never been any evidence of "the powers that be" shutting down research on cold fusion.
2. Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact;
Free energy (as cold fusion promises) would definately change history.
3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Quote: The powers that be do not play by any rules, and anything or anyone who threatens their power are fair game.
4. Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators;
Not really related
5. Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators;
I know several researchers, which claim that the current theories forbid cold fusion. Why did they tell me that? Thousands of researchers, (most of them very idealistic) must be stopped by "the powers that be". A staggering task.
6. Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning;
Not relevant (unless someone can point to an instance of cold fusion researches being stopped).
7. Appeals to 'common sense';
Not relevant (but you could say that the experiments which are taken to imply cold fusion suffers from this).
8. Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies;
Not really sure about this one.
9. Is produced and circulated by 'outsiders', often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review;
Posted on slashdot. Enough said.
10. Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science;
Not relevant.
11. Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities;
Most serious researchers ignore cold fusion, because current theories forbid it.
12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
I suppose this is true, but I have not gone through the rebuttals.
13. The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody;
Every nuclear physicist in the whole world is part of the conspiracy, obviously. The practical issues in organising this requires that a lot of people are involved.
14. The conspiracy centers on the "usual suspects";
"The powers that be" is a vague term, but definately one of the usual suspects.
the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe.
While this is true, it is unfortunately just a tautology: It is possible to have a low unemployment and many people working in the welfare system by offering the unemployed a job in the public sector.
(...)from a purely quantitative perspective, the Swedes have a better standard of living than a purely capitalist United States(...)
The way to measure wealth quantitavely is GNP. Last year, I remember reading that if Sweden was admitted into the USA, it would be the third-poorest state, and that swedes in general were poorer than blacks in USA.
Denmark is far better off than Sweden, though. If you ask me, a major factor in what makes a country rich is the flexibility on the job market, where Denmark rates exceptionally high.
Actually, Jyllands-posten is the largest danish newspaper, though with several others coming close. The newspaper is generally not considered extreme, but some of it's journalists are quite right-wing (obviously, including Flemming Rose), since it is the most right-wing newspaper in Denmark (excluding fringe-newspapers).
In danish journalistic tradition, most newspapers employ journalists without too much regard to their political stance. There are also journalists at Jyllands-posten who would be considered centrists.
The parents point and his question are still valid, in my oppinion.
I cannot verify any of this, since I haven't been to China, but Wikipedia is agreeing with the grandparent: See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall
Extent
Foreign sites
Research into the mainland Chinese Internet censorship has shown that blocked websites include:
* News from many foreign sources, especially websites which include forums. BBC News, Hong Kong News sources are heavily censored.
* Websites, news and information about
o Tibetan independence
o Falun Gong
o Dalai Lama (Restricted)
o Taiwan and Taiwan independence
o Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
o Human rights, freedom of speech, democracy
o Hong Kong. Yahoo Hong Kong is blocked.
o Pornography
o Religious websites, The official website of the Catholic Church is blocked.
* Sites critical of top Chinese leaders or those expressing views different from the Chinese government
* Overseas Chinese websites
Technical sites
* Wikimedia: Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, have recently been blocked for the third time. See Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China.
* SourceForge: SourceForge was blocked in 2002. The blocking was released in 2003, but as of January 2006, it may have been blocked again.
* FreeBSD.org: FreeBSD.org was banned since December 2005. [1]
Free Internet services
* geocities
* zoneedit (free DNS service, one of the servers blocked)
* blogspot (however, blogger.com is not blocked)
A problem I've often encountered is wanting to submit a story, but lacking the writing skills to make a summary that doesn't show too obviously that english isn't my first language. (That sentence was obscured on purpose.)
This is especially true about polls. I've been wanting to submit a poll, something along the following lines:
NSA uses...
1) Secret backdoors
2) Beowulf clusters
3) Social engineering
4) Quantum computers
5) Alien technology
6) Psychic children
7) CowboyNeal factors primes
I think such a poll could spawn some interesting comments, but I'm no expert on the matter so I don't know if the options are sensible, nor do I have much confidence in my sense of humor. Certainly, if other people could see it before it was posted, they could contribute significantly.
Any suggestions for how to solve this problem? I'm quite opposed to the idea of sending "raw" submissions to the editors, because stupid submissions reflect poorly on slashdot and more importantly, me.
The king can defeat your method by simply never flipping the chalice himself.
Of course, everyone here knows what The Combine is.
I'll quote from here instead: http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/prisonerwar.htm
Art. 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[ (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
I can see your point in this. A literal interpretation of the article means that the requirements in (2) can be circumvented by waving your hands and saying: "I'm a part of the armed forces", in effect invalidating (2) completely. (As an aside, I'm not sure if Al-Quida did this.)
So, even if your interpretation seems closer to the text, I'd wager a guess that the writers simply found it evident that all armed forces would satisfy the requirements in (2). The convention was written right after WWII, in which most saboteurs, infiltrators and spies where shot. I do not believe many countries would have signed the convention if it meant outlawing the execution of spies in times of war.
If my memory serves me (I should stress that I am not a lawyer nor particularily knowledgable of this subject), the conventions do not in other ways than this article deal with the grey area between a soldier and a civilian. Your claim that everyone who's not a soldier is a civilian, even if they carry weapons and shoot at soldiers, does strike me as surprising. Could you find a citation for this?
During WWII, a lot of fighting had been in the grey zone between soldier and civilian. It cannot have been an oversight that these are not covered, more likely it's a deliberate attempt to force people to either satisfy the article, or stay completely out of the conflict.
I agree with the last part of your post, about the insurgents. Those you listed deserve the full protection of the Geneva Conventions.
You wrote:
"the Geneva Conventions [...] apply to all signatories regardless if they are fighting a non-signarory, as long as they are at "war""
According to this article 2 of the third geneva convention states:
That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until such time as the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention. "
This means that if the enemy targets civilians or otherwise gravely breaks the Geneva convention, they forfeit it's protection.
Take a look at the rest of the convention, specifically article 4 and wikipedia's discussion on article 5. The argument of the american government looks quite persuasive as presented. GC3 explicitly states you only get protection if you wear uniform, so why should one demand protection if you don't wear uniform?
IANAL.
How many here have ever tried to revert a page after vandalism has happened?
Try doing it *without* first searching for either "vandalism" or "revert" (The average visitor doesn't know these terms) for hints on how to do it.
The process is horribly complicated, unintuitive and timeconsuming. I am no expert on user interface design, I should add, so this is just my uninformed oppinion. Perhaps adding a "I think vandalism has happened here" link would help?