Why? I assume you're not a gamer. More buttons on a mouse, to a gamer, is heaven, pure and simple. 10 buttons sounds just about right - maybe more than you'd need, but I'd rather have too many and leave a few unbound than have too few and going "fuck, it'd be nice if . .."
<aside>
To: Logitech
Re: Your stupid fucking drivers
Body: I don't fucking need sensitivity switching or application switching. I want Mouse1, Mouse2, Mouse3, Mouse4, Mouse5, Mouse6, Mouse7, and Mouse8 all bind-able in game. I've used the sensitivity switching -once- before I tweaked the game's sensitivity settings and never fucking touched it again. Let me set the now-useless buttons as something else - a Use key, for example, or a Walk key. Whatever. Get your driver developers on the job. Now!</aside>
I would say that comparing the two is essential, for exactly that reason. I wouldn't claim that communism is viable, but without calmly, honestly, and rationally comparing the two, you make the difficulties in finding flaws in the other that much more difficult.
With that said, however, within the bounds of the GGP's post, his analogy is absolutely correct. Whether communism is as worth while an economic structure as capitalism is completely superfluous to the statement in question. I think we agree that it isn't, but I also think that unfettered capitalism is just as horrible as Feudalism. That, however, is completely beside the point that GGP was trying to make. It's more of a side-debate - and while interesting - probably would be better suited to being the primary topic of discussion, rather than an auxillary one.
Why in the hell does the likelyhood of success have anything to do with comparison? In fact, I would say that their success rate is a direct comparison, which means, if anything, you haven't the slightest idea what "comparable" means. I'm also unsure whether I would call "appropriate of property" a "ruthless and cruel act" - at least, across the board. Otherwise your government participates in brutal acts every day. Taxes? Check. If you don't pay them, it gets even worse. Illegal drugs? Check. Can't have those. Moonshine? Check. That shit isn't happening here. A nuclear warhead? Check. Probably not going to be able to keep that for too long.
Methinks you need to open up a dictionary and look up the definitions of the words you're using.
I would say that's the one time it isn't suspicious - at least not compared to any other time.
The odds of someone setting up a new account, taking in $3500/hour, when absolutely nothing is going on in the world, and that account not being shady would seem, to me, to be incredibly low.
Whereas, during a national disaster, hundreds or thousands of people running hundreds or thousands of sites with "communities", running charity "events" (auctions, raffles, etc, etc) with all proceeds going to the Red Cross (remember, you need proof that person X actually donated Y dollars, and the best way to do that, considering the functionality of the Red Cross donation system, is to run it through yourself). I would say that, during a national disaster, this is the one time that a brand new account bringing in that much money would be less suspicious than any other time.
Sorry, but no. You forget the power of marketing. We, as consumers, can be incredibly stupid at times. As much as I hate to say it, I have to be included in this. We're told this game is the greatest game ever. It's features are touted for months, or even years before its released. We read about it and desire it from the first trailer that gets released. And then, when it comes out, even when our friends complain it sucks, we buy it anyway, because we just can't seem to fathom how something that sounds and looked so good could turn out to be so horrible. We buy it. And then we try to like it. For hours, days, weeks, or months. We try, because we hope that, through mere willpower alone, we can make the game into something great.
But that's not how the real world works. And eventually we uninstall the game and put it back in its case, shoving it on a shelf, never to be touched again. I have about 30 games like that right now. And, for as smart as I supposedly am, I continue to do it, proving, without a doubt, that I'm not smart. On the contrary, I'm fucking stupid. I'm a sheep and I consistently make poor decisions when it comes to games.
Only, lately, it's been different. Instead of spending 50-100$ a month on new games, I just don't anymore. In fact, with the exception of Day of Defeat: Source, I don't think I'm going to buy any more games. It's just not worth it anymore. And I'm not talking money-wise, either. I'm talking about the emotional stress it puts me through. I am a gamer. I play games. Entirely too much, I agree, and the fact that it does put emotional stress on me illustrates that fact perfectly. But that doesn't make it less true. The bottom line is, I'm tired of getting let down. I've given everyone the benefit of the doubt - new development studios that I've had no experience with, old developers who have had great games in the past - and they're all letting me down. It's just not worth it. So I'll go back to Tribes 1. I'll play the occassional Tribes 2. And I'll play Tribes: Vengeance on occassion, just to remind myself how low a franchise can sink.
And I've just realized I'm rambling, so I'll stop. My apologies.
I don't believe I said anything anywhere to contradict that point? I was talking about what decompression algorithms it supports. GGP already stated it was shareware. I really don't see why it had to be restated, but alright.
Just so everyone else knows, in case they haven't read it yet:
I agree, but when it comes to the government, it's important that records are kept and are able to be looked at later. We sure would look stupid if we couldn't figure out what half of our constitution said because it was in a dead file format.
Really, though, we shouldn't have to break the law (patent law?) to read important government information from years bygone.
As a home user, however, I honestly don't give a shit. Word 2003, OO.o, WordPerfect - hell, a text file - none of these ever contain anything I'd ever want other than for the immediate future. Then again, my needs are different from everyone else's, so, while I, personally, don't need or care about an open file format, others actually may.
7-zip may support more - I honestly don't know, as WinRAR fits all my needs perfectly - and I'm not trying to say 7-zip is a bad choice (again, I wouldn't know). But, for your information, WinRAR does much more than just RAR.:)
Apparently. It seems to be the way some applications want to go. Take Opera, for instance. It does just about everything under the sun. I hear, with release 11, it's going to even mow your lawn for you.
For some people, that's simply fabulous. Personally, I'd rather have a good screwdriver and a pair of pliars than a swiss army knife / leatherman, but just because that's the way I like it, it doesn't mean it's the way things have to be.
Someone out there is probably bouncing off the walls now that WinZip will burn directly to CD/DVD for them. There's nothing wrong with that.
Considering what a bastard I was (am), I would have consistently gotten the watch wet just to irritate my parents who made me wear the stupid thing. I'm relatively sure that, barring any other source of water, I would have pissed on it (but only because I'm the sort of person who will piss on their arm just to not have to do something ELSE they wouldn't want to do).
As an offtopic aside - I spent a lot of time grounded as a child. : )
Someone actually said that to me at work, non-jokingly, on a Monday morning.
Generally speaking, I don't have anger issues. I'm laid back, mellow, and "nice". But at that moment, the urge to beat her to death with the fax machine almost overwhelmed me.
why should Perfect 10 be responsible for monitoring ALL webservices/search engines/etc from ALL companies and look for abuse of their property?
Um...because it's their property? I didn't know it suddenly became mandatory for someone else to give a shit about what happens to your property.
Newsflash - if I see someone stealing your car, I don't have to do a god damned thing about it. If the police ask me what happened, I'll respond truthfully, but I am under no obligation to stop these theives from stealing what is yours nor am I required to go to the authorities.
I was wondering the same thing. I remember being taught this from about 7th grade through to Intro to Astronomy in college ( 2 years ago ). I think the only thing that shocked me about this article is the fact that it's been designated "news". I can understand a few months, maybe even a year or two, but this long?
Whatever, though. At least it gave me to bitch about. I'm happy.:)
Also, when you mention the egg is not an embryo - I'm aware. IVF procedures usually have multiple eggs being fertilized at any given time. Once they determine which eggs have been fertilized and which haven't, they then insert (more than one) egg into the uterus. It often happens that many of these zygotes/embryos die, but usually at least one makes it through. Sometimes a lot more than one. But they usually still have some left over, to make sure that the lady has, indeed, been impregnated, and if not, then they don't have to go through the entire IVF procedure again. They can just insert new zygotes/embryos that they have sitting around from the last time through. This is good if she isn't pregnant. But if she is pregnant, and she knows she doesn't want any more children, the zygotes/embryos are either frozen or destroyed.
When making a cake, you have your cake mix and your egg, milk, and oil (actually, I don't know if you need milk or not, as I haven't made cake in a few years, but lets say, for the sake of argument, you do need milk.).
All the ingredients, separately - are they a cake? I think the answer is a resounding no.
So you mix them together. You now have cake batter in a bowl. Is it a cake yet? No. This is akin to a sperm and egg combining. Is this cake batter now a cake? I would say absolutely not. It's merely cake batter (and quite tasty). Is our newly formed zygote life? I would say no, it's a zygote. I CAN be life, much as our cake batter CAN be cake. But neither of them are there yet.
So, we put our cake batter in a pan and we put that pan in the oven. Now, as soon as that cake batter goes into the oven - does that make it a cake? If you opened the oven a mere microsecond after inserting the pan, does it become a cake? I say no. I say it's still just cake batter.
On the flip side of that token, one microsecond before the cake is "done" (let's say we've set a timer), if we open the oven, is the cake still cake batter? I would say absolutely not. It's now a cake.
Now, the question is, when, in that progression of insertion to extraction, does the cake batter turn into a cake? I honestly don't know. Same with the zygote that turns into an embryo that turns into a fetus that turns into a baby. At some point it passes a threshhold from being just batter (maybe begging to solidify - or at least "spongeify", if you're baking it properly) to being a cake (maybe with a little "raw", "unspongey"-ness to it, but still able to stand on its own and accept our favorite icings). Where does it cross over from being mostly batter to mostly cake? Can you pinpoint it?
Let's say you can. What it is, I don't know, but with the marvels of modern science, let's say we figure it out, and everyone knows the moment when cake batter turns to cake. We know it, but the truth is, it doesn't matter so much. What matters is that, the moment the batter goes in the oven, or shortly thereafter, it's not yet a cake. What matters is, the moment the cake comes out of the oven, and shortly before, it's no longer batter.
To say that life begins at conception is, in my opinion, like saying cake begins at mixing. A silly statement. To say that life begins at birth is, also, in my opinion, like saying a cake doesn't exist until its time is up and it has been removed from the oven. Another silly statement. What is the object in the oven, that goes from batter to cake? Is it just mix and eggs and oil and (maybe) milk? Is it cake? Or is it something different and unique, unlike its parent components and also unlike its "final" form? I could say that the cake batter/cake is, indeed, something different. Something in transition. Does it get the same rights and protections as regular cake? No. For starters, it's a really bad idea trying to smear chocolate icing on a pan of cake batter. Does it get more rights and protections as the batter? No, it gets more. I know I was never allowed running around like a monkey when a cake was baking. "You'll make it fall!" I don't know whether this is true or not, but I do know that my monkey-like shennanigans weren't inhibited when the cake was being mixed or being frosted.
In any event, I strung that analogy out a bit more than I had meant to, but so be it. To answer your question, "is it ok to throw out the cake while its baking" - I would say yes. And I would say no. It depends on whether it's mostly batter, or mostly cake.:)
Most people who are against it are also for in vitro fertilization for couples who otherwise couldn't have children. nevermind that an excessive number of eggs are harvested and fertilized before one is selected and transfered back into the uterus (excessive is a strict definition in this case - I'm not talking hundreds of thousands or something, just more than will be necessary for the procedure). nevermind that these eggs are either kept frozen or destroyed after the woman becomes successfully impregnated.
really, pick one stance and stick with it. either embryos are alive and need to be protected, or they aren't and don't. I don't see how destroying embryos on the way to having a child is somehow more ethically acceptable than curing "everything from A to Z".
Personally, I have no problem harvesting embryos, even if a woman consents to being a "farm" for eggs. An embryo is no more a human than cake batter still in the mixing bowl is a cake. Obviously, this is where my opinion diverges from many of you. That's okay. All I ask is consistency in our respective positions.
I would tend to agree with you, but I've seen too many poor parents (my own among them) choose the unecessary (like mass quantities of drugs and alcohol) over the necessary (like clothes). Do you know what it's like to be getting a job at 10 years old just so you don't have to wear clothes from goodwill or handme downs? Have you ever eaten cereal from a sack without milk? I would hazard a guess and say "no".
Without the "haves" subsidizing my food, my housing, my education (both normal K-12 AND college), I never would have broken the cycle. I would have ended up just like them.
Is that a good thing? By some people's estimation, yes, because, while I was being provided for, there were 2 other people (my parents) who were abusing the system. They'd rather cut a kid like me off just to stop the worthless dregs of society than support those dregs and myself.
Frankly, I'm glad they aren't the ones making the rules. Without that help, I probably wouldn't have finished highschool, much less gone through college, or even think about plans for pursuing my masters.
I'll be the first to admit there are problems with welfare, subsidies, or other freebies. But without them, I'd probably be living in a run down trailer with two or three kids, a drug habit, empty 40's strewn all over the floor, a car up on blocks in my front yard and a job moving heavy things. Hooray for that.
He wasn't referring to porn. Look at the Great-grandparent. The post he was replying to. "There is no tasteful nudity. Next question." You've taken GP's reply completely out of context. I'm not saying what you've said is wrong in and of itself, but it's wrong being posited in this instance.
Err, when I said "Showing that stuff on broadcast TV, for example, should be pretty much out of the question. That applies to the internet as well.", I meant "showing it on the internet in a public, wide-open manner". If porn sites were to actually "card" their viewers (like they're supposed to), that would be completely acceptable to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Why? I assume you're not a gamer. More buttons on a mouse, to a gamer, is heaven, pure and simple. 10 buttons sounds just about right - maybe more than you'd need, but I'd rather have too many and leave a few unbound than have too few and going "fuck, it'd be nice if . . ."
<aside> To: Logitech Re: Your stupid fucking drivers Body: I don't fucking need sensitivity switching or application switching. I want Mouse1, Mouse2, Mouse3, Mouse4, Mouse5, Mouse6, Mouse7, and Mouse8 all bind-able in game. I've used the sensitivity switching -once- before I tweaked the game's sensitivity settings and never fucking touched it again. Let me set the now-useless buttons as something else - a Use key, for example, or a Walk key. Whatever. Get your driver developers on the job. Now!</aside>
I would say that comparing the two is essential, for exactly that reason. I wouldn't claim that communism is viable, but without calmly, honestly, and rationally comparing the two, you make the difficulties in finding flaws in the other that much more difficult.
With that said, however, within the bounds of the GGP's post, his analogy is absolutely correct. Whether communism is as worth while an economic structure as capitalism is completely superfluous to the statement in question. I think we agree that it isn't, but I also think that unfettered capitalism is just as horrible as Feudalism. That, however, is completely beside the point that GGP was trying to make. It's more of a side-debate - and while interesting - probably would be better suited to being the primary topic of discussion, rather than an auxillary one.
Personally, I find the meaning of the word more important than the spelling, but I'll heed your advice anyway.
(That wasn't the preview button.)
"Why in the hell does likelyhood of success of anything to do with the ability to compare?"
"appropriation of property"
Why in the hell does the likelyhood of success have anything to do with comparison? In fact, I would say that their success rate is a direct comparison, which means, if anything, you haven't the slightest idea what "comparable" means. I'm also unsure whether I would call "appropriate of property" a "ruthless and cruel act" - at least, across the board. Otherwise your government participates in brutal acts every day. Taxes? Check. If you don't pay them, it gets even worse. Illegal drugs? Check. Can't have those. Moonshine? Check. That shit isn't happening here. A nuclear warhead? Check. Probably not going to be able to keep that for too long.
Methinks you need to open up a dictionary and look up the definitions of the words you're using.
I would say that's the one time it isn't suspicious - at least not compared to any other time.
The odds of someone setting up a new account, taking in $3500/hour, when absolutely nothing is going on in the world, and that account not being shady would seem, to me, to be incredibly low.
Whereas, during a national disaster, hundreds or thousands of people running hundreds or thousands of sites with "communities", running charity "events" (auctions, raffles, etc, etc) with all proceeds going to the Red Cross (remember, you need proof that person X actually donated Y dollars, and the best way to do that, considering the functionality of the Red Cross donation system, is to run it through yourself). I would say that, during a national disaster, this is the one time that a brand new account bringing in that much money would be less suspicious than any other time.
Sorry, but no. You forget the power of marketing. We, as consumers, can be incredibly stupid at times. As much as I hate to say it, I have to be included in this. We're told this game is the greatest game ever. It's features are touted for months, or even years before its released. We read about it and desire it from the first trailer that gets released. And then, when it comes out, even when our friends complain it sucks, we buy it anyway, because we just can't seem to fathom how something that sounds and looked so good could turn out to be so horrible. We buy it. And then we try to like it. For hours, days, weeks, or months. We try, because we hope that, through mere willpower alone, we can make the game into something great.
But that's not how the real world works. And eventually we uninstall the game and put it back in its case, shoving it on a shelf, never to be touched again. I have about 30 games like that right now. And, for as smart as I supposedly am, I continue to do it, proving, without a doubt, that I'm not smart. On the contrary, I'm fucking stupid. I'm a sheep and I consistently make poor decisions when it comes to games.
Only, lately, it's been different. Instead of spending 50-100$ a month on new games, I just don't anymore. In fact, with the exception of Day of Defeat: Source, I don't think I'm going to buy any more games. It's just not worth it anymore. And I'm not talking money-wise, either. I'm talking about the emotional stress it puts me through. I am a gamer. I play games. Entirely too much, I agree, and the fact that it does put emotional stress on me illustrates that fact perfectly. But that doesn't make it less true. The bottom line is, I'm tired of getting let down. I've given everyone the benefit of the doubt - new development studios that I've had no experience with, old developers who have had great games in the past - and they're all letting me down. It's just not worth it. So I'll go back to Tribes 1. I'll play the occassional Tribes 2. And I'll play Tribes: Vengeance on occassion, just to remind myself how low a franchise can sink.
And I've just realized I'm rambling, so I'll stop. My apologies.
I don't believe I said anything anywhere to contradict that point? I was talking about what decompression algorithms it supports. GGP already stated it was shareware. I really don't see why it had to be restated, but alright.
Just so everyone else knows, in case they haven't read it yet:
WinRAR is not free.
Now they're really aware.
I agree, but when it comes to the government, it's important that records are kept and are able to be looked at later. We sure would look stupid if we couldn't figure out what half of our constitution said because it was in a dead file format.
Really, though, we shouldn't have to break the law (patent law?) to read important government information from years bygone.
As a home user, however, I honestly don't give a shit. Word 2003, OO.o, WordPerfect - hell, a text file - none of these ever contain anything I'd ever want other than for the immediate future. Then again, my needs are different from everyone else's, so, while I, personally, don't need or care about an open file format, others actually may.
WinRAR supports more than RAR also?
:)
RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, 7-Zip, TAR, GZip, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, Z.
7-zip may support more - I honestly don't know, as WinRAR fits all my needs perfectly - and I'm not trying to say 7-zip is a bad choice (again, I wouldn't know). But, for your information, WinRAR does much more than just RAR.
Apparently. It seems to be the way some applications want to go. Take Opera, for instance. It does just about everything under the sun. I hear, with release 11, it's going to even mow your lawn for you.
For some people, that's simply fabulous. Personally, I'd rather have a good screwdriver and a pair of pliars than a swiss army knife / leatherman, but just because that's the way I like it, it doesn't mean it's the way things have to be.
Someone out there is probably bouncing off the walls now that WinZip will burn directly to CD/DVD for them. There's nothing wrong with that.
Considering what a bastard I was (am), I would have consistently gotten the watch wet just to irritate my parents who made me wear the stupid thing. I'm relatively sure that, barring any other source of water, I would have pissed on it (but only because I'm the sort of person who will piss on their arm just to not have to do something ELSE they wouldn't want to do).
As an offtopic aside - I spent a lot of time grounded as a child. : )
Did you, by any chance, help design Windows 3.1?
As long as things aren't changing bimonthly, I don't see a horrendous problem. There's much to be said for being flexible.
Then again, if it happens too often, more time is spent switching back and forth between the new "great" ideas than doing actual work.
Someone actually said that to me at work, non-jokingly, on a Monday morning.
Generally speaking, I don't have anger issues. I'm laid back, mellow, and "nice". But at that moment, the urge to beat her to death with the fax machine almost overwhelmed me.
Newsflash - if I see someone stealing your car, I don't have to do a god damned thing about it. If the police ask me what happened, I'll respond truthfully, but I am under no obligation to stop these theives from stealing what is yours nor am I required to go to the authorities.
Your property, your responsibility.
I was wondering the same thing. I remember being taught this from about 7th grade through to Intro to Astronomy in college ( 2 years ago ). I think the only thing that shocked me about this article is the fact that it's been designated "news". I can understand a few months, maybe even a year or two, but this long?
:)
Whatever, though. At least it gave me to bitch about. I'm happy.
Also, when you mention the egg is not an embryo - I'm aware. IVF procedures usually have multiple eggs being fertilized at any given time. Once they determine which eggs have been fertilized and which haven't, they then insert (more than one) egg into the uterus. It often happens that many of these zygotes/embryos die, but usually at least one makes it through. Sometimes a lot more than one. But they usually still have some left over, to make sure that the lady has, indeed, been impregnated, and if not, then they don't have to go through the entire IVF procedure again. They can just insert new zygotes/embryos that they have sitting around from the last time through. This is good if she isn't pregnant. But if she is pregnant, and she knows she doesn't want any more children, the zygotes/embryos are either frozen or destroyed.
:)
Or at least that's what wikipedia told me
The analogy goes as follows:
:)
When making a cake, you have your cake mix and your egg, milk, and oil (actually, I don't know if you need milk or not, as I haven't made cake in a few years, but lets say, for the sake of argument, you do need milk.).
All the ingredients, separately - are they a cake? I think the answer is a resounding no.
So you mix them together. You now have cake batter in a bowl. Is it a cake yet? No. This is akin to a sperm and egg combining. Is this cake batter now a cake? I would say absolutely not. It's merely cake batter (and quite tasty). Is our newly formed zygote life? I would say no, it's a zygote. I CAN be life, much as our cake batter CAN be cake. But neither of them are there yet.
So, we put our cake batter in a pan and we put that pan in the oven. Now, as soon as that cake batter goes into the oven - does that make it a cake? If you opened the oven a mere microsecond after inserting the pan, does it become a cake? I say no. I say it's still just cake batter.
On the flip side of that token, one microsecond before the cake is "done" (let's say we've set a timer), if we open the oven, is the cake still cake batter? I would say absolutely not. It's now a cake.
Now, the question is, when, in that progression of insertion to extraction, does the cake batter turn into a cake? I honestly don't know. Same with the zygote that turns into an embryo that turns into a fetus that turns into a baby. At some point it passes a threshhold from being just batter (maybe begging to solidify - or at least "spongeify", if you're baking it properly) to being a cake (maybe with a little "raw", "unspongey"-ness to it, but still able to stand on its own and accept our favorite icings). Where does it cross over from being mostly batter to mostly cake? Can you pinpoint it?
Let's say you can. What it is, I don't know, but with the marvels of modern science, let's say we figure it out, and everyone knows the moment when cake batter turns to cake. We know it, but the truth is, it doesn't matter so much. What matters is that, the moment the batter goes in the oven, or shortly thereafter, it's not yet a cake. What matters is, the moment the cake comes out of the oven, and shortly before, it's no longer batter.
To say that life begins at conception is, in my opinion, like saying cake begins at mixing. A silly statement. To say that life begins at birth is, also, in my opinion, like saying a cake doesn't exist until its time is up and it has been removed from the oven. Another silly statement. What is the object in the oven, that goes from batter to cake? Is it just mix and eggs and oil and (maybe) milk? Is it cake? Or is it something different and unique, unlike its parent components and also unlike its "final" form? I could say that the cake batter/cake is, indeed, something different. Something in transition. Does it get the same rights and protections as regular cake? No. For starters, it's a really bad idea trying to smear chocolate icing on a pan of cake batter. Does it get more rights and protections as the batter? No, it gets more. I know I was never allowed running around like a monkey when a cake was baking. "You'll make it fall!" I don't know whether this is true or not, but I do know that my monkey-like shennanigans weren't inhibited when the cake was being mixed or being frosted.
In any event, I strung that analogy out a bit more than I had meant to, but so be it. To answer your question, "is it ok to throw out the cake while its baking" - I would say yes. And I would say no. It depends on whether it's mostly batter, or mostly cake.
Most people who are against it are also for in vitro fertilization for couples who otherwise couldn't have children. nevermind that an excessive number of eggs are harvested and fertilized before one is selected and transfered back into the uterus (excessive is a strict definition in this case - I'm not talking hundreds of thousands or something, just more than will be necessary for the procedure). nevermind that these eggs are either kept frozen or destroyed after the woman becomes successfully impregnated.
really, pick one stance and stick with it. either embryos are alive and need to be protected, or they aren't and don't. I don't see how destroying embryos on the way to having a child is somehow more ethically acceptable than curing "everything from A to Z".
Personally, I have no problem harvesting embryos, even if a woman consents to being a "farm" for eggs. An embryo is no more a human than cake batter still in the mixing bowl is a cake. Obviously, this is where my opinion diverges from many of you. That's okay. All I ask is consistency in our respective positions.
I would tend to agree with you, but I've seen too many poor parents (my own among them) choose the unecessary (like mass quantities of drugs and alcohol) over the necessary (like clothes). Do you know what it's like to be getting a job at 10 years old just so you don't have to wear clothes from goodwill or handme downs? Have you ever eaten cereal from a sack without milk? I would hazard a guess and say "no".
Without the "haves" subsidizing my food, my housing, my education (both normal K-12 AND college), I never would have broken the cycle. I would have ended up just like them.
Is that a good thing? By some people's estimation, yes, because, while I was being provided for, there were 2 other people (my parents) who were abusing the system. They'd rather cut a kid like me off just to stop the worthless dregs of society than support those dregs and myself.
Frankly, I'm glad they aren't the ones making the rules. Without that help, I probably wouldn't have finished highschool, much less gone through college, or even think about plans for pursuing my masters.
I'll be the first to admit there are problems with welfare, subsidies, or other freebies. But without them, I'd probably be living in a run down trailer with two or three kids, a drug habit, empty 40's strewn all over the floor, a car up on blocks in my front yard and a job moving heavy things. Hooray for that.
That's why scientists aren't in advertising or public relations :)
He wasn't referring to porn. Look at the Great-grandparent. The post he was replying to. "There is no tasteful nudity. Next question." You've taken GP's reply completely out of context. I'm not saying what you've said is wrong in and of itself, but it's wrong being posited in this instance.
Err, when I said "Showing that stuff on broadcast TV, for example, should be pretty much out of the question. That applies to the internet as well.", I meant "showing it on the internet in a public, wide-open manner". If porn sites were to actually "card" their viewers (like they're supposed to), that would be completely acceptable to me.