Re:Quote from the article
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 1
There is such a fine line between constraining the press and being an "organ of state propaganda." It's a line that tends to blur away in practicality though.
Re:Quote from the article
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 1
Government regulation was good for the media, at least insofar as new boradcasting was concerned...
Yeah, and Pravda was a bastion of unbiassed, truth-seeking reporting before the fall of the Soviet Union.
We're geeks, right? We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. Without us, nothing happens and no-one works.
Yeah, until they can your ass and replace you with someone in a different time zone who is more educationally qualified than you are and asks for less money.
Lesson here? No one is indispensible. As Charles De Gaulle said, "The graveyards are full of indispensible men."
Damn, so if I go rip off my neighbor's Pontiac should I be pissed off when the steering column catches on fire because I couldn't take it back to the dealer during the recall? This issue looks like a common sense to me.
Committing theft takes away your right to be upset about such things, IMHO.
Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people.
Nope, Islamic leaders do not want to lose their stranglehold on the minds of their people and by extension, their power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.
Bullshit, it is their "it's them or us" mentality. If you notice that the charter of the PLO doesn't mention coexistance with Israel (implicitly, the eradication of the Jews is implied). Americans and the rest of the non-Islamic world gets lumped into this mix.
Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.
Wrong, there is no moral equivalence or grey area here. One group of people is targetting civilians and non-combatants, the other is not. It's that simple.
Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.
You rail against our "cultural imperialism" and then posit that a transition to a free and open Middle East is an inevitability because the people want to create their own culture which will have the same attributes as ours? Your logical paradox doesn't stand...
Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".
Yes, you are correct on this point. Radical Islamists and the people whose minds they control want the extermination of all non-Islamic societies. This is their eventual goal and their interpretation of "jihad."
Have you thought about how many trees you're killing or the C02 you're pumping into the atmosphere just to make your programming job easier? You capitalists never think about the feelings of the dolphins when you claim such an extravagance is needed to help you get your job done more efficiently. Next time, be Earth-Friendly and write all of your code on mud tablets first.
Yes, it is true: every time you hit Google, you are polluting the Earth.
...and it is true that every time you fart, you are polluting the Earth.
To me, it seems like Greenies will find any way they can to "rain on the parade of progress." Go back to living in your urban ivory-tower and leave the rest of us schlubs alone to pursue the fruits of technology nag-free.
But for manuals, books, papers and reports LaTeX is always the best choice.
Yep, and for taking notes in class, inscribing cuneiform on a wet mud tablet and then baking it in the sun is "always the best choice."
I used to share your view about LaTeX before I was actually forced to use it for every paper in a 400-level CS class I took last semester. My classmates and I agreed that the markup in LaTeX, and the difficulty of placing figures, tables, and other material in the document, was an impediment to the quick and accurate creation of serious scientific papers.
The learning curve is too steep, there are too many poorly-documented graphics packages, etc. were the bitches heard about it. Most of us spent more time learning LaTeX than we did _desiging and coding_ our programs.
Anyways, just my 2 cents from the academic trenches.
Hmmm, not really. Here where I live in MO, poor people are more likely to use the free health care, drive gas-guzzling pickemup trucks, and live further out of town in these monstrous trailer parks.
Just think of Sam Walton, etc. Your sweeping generalization just doesn't work. You're right about one thing though, this thread is officially dead.:)
Okay, charge me a flat fee (~$8000) for the services provided. No more than that though, make the whole thing based upon the actual cost of the service per citizen. As it's structured right now, it's no more than "wolf" of wealth redistribution in sheep's clothing.
Get educated on taxes and how _your_ money is spent making ad-hominem attacks on us "ungrateful whelps". Welcome to intellectual debate, lib.
Okay, if that's true, then the income tax would be structured as a flat fee for everyone (i.e. ~$8000 per citizen, w/o regard to wealth) based on the "services consumed". As it is, it's no more than a wealth distribution system with no more tha 20% of it going to defense costs anyways.
If I buy electricity, I'm charged on the amount I use. Why can't it be that way for a govt. service?
Get informed on taxes. It's easier than you think, college person:)
Ahem... Let me say this again: They are taxing private networks built by private companies with their own money.
How is this different than the income tax? I can sit on my arse in a shack year round, using no govt. services and still have to pay the income tax. I make money from the fruit of my labors, "built" with my valuable time, and I still have to give Uncle Sam his cut.
I just realized that this guy (Rob Mensching) was the grader for my CS153 class at the University of Missouri - Rolla. It's cool to see some of our alums doing good things...
You mention inner city blacks. Well, how much better would they be _without_ government intervention? Would everyone spontaneously donate some of their money so that the less fortunate can get wellfare? Would everyone spontaneously donate some of their money for public schools? (However badly funded those schools may be, it's still better than nothing.) That's BS. Unless there was a government making you give up that money, noone would.
The US has some of the most charitable citizens in the world. I worked with various charities in college and can confirm this anecdotally as well as statistically.
Without a government doing something about it, chances are those blacks would have been still held at gunpoint to work on plantations until after World War 1. (When eventually agriculture started to have too much manpower, instead of too little.)
Can you back this up with evidence?
No, the government isn't perfect. No, the politicians aren't up to date on all technical issues. No, they're not always honest either.
But history shows that it still works better than just waiting for the problems to go away on their own....
Wrong again, governments (with cooperation from various corporations and groups of individuals) around the world have perpetrated evil things such as the Final Solution, Stalin's Purges, the Terror of the French Revolution, etc.
See the pressure mechanism I've described. Anyone trying to make a safe car couldn't have competed on price with those who sold a death trap on wheels. So you'd still be buying death traps on wheels, if there weren't some laws that changed the playing field.
Yep, a nasceant technology (such as the automobile was in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s) takes a while to work out the bugs. But have you noticed how vehicles are marketed today? "5-star crash ratings, etc." Plus, the insurance industry puts the hurt on those of us who choose to drive unsafe cars. Therefore, it's not merely government bringing about change.
The seatbelt laws, airbags, etc. are all well and good but how many of our fellow citizens actually wear them? Not many. An airbag makes your car more dangerous if you choose not to wear your seatbelt.
How are you going to legislate/enforce all of this? The amount of redundant/unenforceable regulation already on the books is driving your average working family into the ground.
I agree with you that government is not inherently evil, nor is it inherently good. Before you spout _your_ lemming like mantra that the "government can solve all of mankind's problems, just give it more time and money," please think about the burden you are placing on this nation's working poor.
You're one of them if you believe that more government can solve your problems. Just ask inner city blacks how well the "War on Poverty" has gone for them...
History does not show again and again that this kind of thing needs laws. Human nature is such that it is impossible to completely protect people from their own ignorance and/or laziness.
I had my Windows XP system totally die the other day so I called a local computer repair shop to fix it. The guy comes over, opens the case and plugs something he called a "power connector" back into a thing called a "hard drive"? Apparently, it had fallen out when I moved the computer from the living room into my office. It took him 2 minutes to fix the dang thing and get it up and running again.
Next week, I get the bill. $100 !?! It only took him two minutes to fix it! He reminds me of that college kid my company hired to program our stock system. They paid that kid nearly $45,000 a year and all he does is type for eight hours a day, anyone can do that!
Yes, but the assumption that man is the cause of this warming trend is not grounded on any hard scientific evidence. As of now we only have theories without any "hard" evidence, which is not enough to make good public policy with.
Venice is subsiding without the help of global warming, it has been for years (7cm a year for the past 1000 years). Please check your facts because when you try to use a bad example to back up your argument, you and your claims become as baseless as all of the other "treehuggers".
The sky isn't falling and you are not Chicken Little:) Take a deep breath and go back to coding or studying.
Slashdot Mirror
There is such a fine line between constraining the press and being an "organ of state propaganda." It's a line that tends to blur away in practicality though.
Government regulation was good for the media, at least insofar as new boradcasting was concerned...
Yeah, and Pravda was a bastion of unbiassed, truth-seeking reporting before the fall of the Soviet Union.
Easy, potatoes are less expensive. Quit comparing apples to oranges.
Yeah, until they can your ass and replace you with someone in a different time zone who is more educationally qualified than you are and asks for less money.
Lesson here? No one is indispensible. As Charles De Gaulle said, "The graveyards are full of indispensible men."
Seeing your caption reminded me of the one-liner: "Dyslexics of the World, UNTIE!"
Damn, so if I go rip off my neighbor's Pontiac should I be pissed off when the steering column catches on fire because I couldn't take it back to the dealer during the recall? This issue looks like a common sense to me.
Committing theft takes away your right to be upset about such things, IMHO.
...overweight women and let them know about events where they could meet guys interested in larger women.
Ahh, a "chubby-chaser" convention. I wonder why they didn't want to be associated with this?
Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people.
Nope, Islamic leaders do not want to lose their stranglehold on the minds of their people and by extension, their power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.
Bullshit, it is their "it's them or us" mentality. If you notice that the charter of the PLO doesn't mention coexistance with Israel (implicitly, the eradication of the Jews is implied). Americans and the rest of the non-Islamic world gets lumped into this mix.
Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.
Wrong, there is no moral equivalence or grey area here. One group of people is targetting civilians and non-combatants, the other is not. It's that simple.
Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.
You rail against our "cultural imperialism" and then posit that a transition to a free and open Middle East is an inevitability because the people want to create their own culture which will have the same attributes as ours? Your logical paradox doesn't stand...
Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".
Yes, you are correct on this point. Radical Islamists and the people whose minds they control want the extermination of all non-Islamic societies. This is their eventual goal and their interpretation of "jihad."
Have you thought about how many trees you're killing or the C02 you're pumping into the atmosphere just to make your programming job easier? You capitalists never think about the feelings of the dolphins when you claim such an extravagance is needed to help you get your job done more efficiently. Next time, be Earth-Friendly and write all of your code on mud tablets first.
</tounge-in-cheek>
TPC/IP stack? What's that, Transactions per Century/IP?
...but what if the email bounces???
Yes, it is true: every time you hit Google, you are polluting the Earth.
...and it is true that every time you fart, you are polluting the Earth.
To me, it seems like Greenies will find any way they can to "rain on the parade of progress." Go back to living in your urban ivory-tower and leave the rest of us schlubs alone to pursue the fruits of technology nag-free.
But for manuals, books, papers and reports LaTeX is always the best choice.
Yep, and for taking notes in class, inscribing cuneiform on a wet mud tablet and then baking it in the sun is "always the best choice."
I used to share your view about LaTeX before I was actually forced to use it for every paper in a 400-level CS class I took last semester. My classmates and I agreed that the markup in LaTeX, and the difficulty of placing figures, tables, and other material in the document, was an impediment to the quick and accurate creation of serious scientific papers.
The learning curve is too steep, there are too many poorly-documented graphics packages, etc. were the bitches heard about it. Most of us spent more time learning LaTeX than we did _desiging and coding_ our programs.
Anyways, just my 2 cents from the academic trenches.
Hmmm, not really. Here where I live in MO, poor people are more likely to use the free health care, drive gas-guzzling pickemup trucks, and live further out of town in these monstrous trailer parks.
:)
Just think of Sam Walton, etc. Your sweeping generalization just doesn't work. You're right about one thing though, this thread is officially dead.
Okay, charge me a flat fee (~$8000) for the services provided. No more than that though, make the whole thing based upon the actual cost of the service per citizen. As it's structured right now, it's no more than "wolf" of wealth redistribution in sheep's clothing.
Get educated on taxes and how _your_ money is spent making ad-hominem attacks on us "ungrateful whelps". Welcome to intellectual debate, lib.
Okay, if that's true, then the income tax would be structured as a flat fee for everyone (i.e. ~$8000 per citizen, w/o regard to wealth) based on the "services consumed". As it is, it's no more than a wealth distribution system with no more tha 20% of it going to defense costs anyways.
:)
If I buy electricity, I'm charged on the amount I use. Why can't it be that way for a govt. service?
Get informed on taxes. It's easier than you think, college person
Ahem... Let me say this again:
They are taxing private networks built by private companies with their own money.
How is this different than the income tax? I can sit on my arse in a shack year round, using no govt. services and still have to pay the income tax. I make money from the fruit of my labors, "built" with my valuable time, and I still have to give Uncle Sam his cut.
Taxes suck. Full Stop.
and blow a hole in the "write once, run everywhere" theory.
Shouldn't it be the "write once, debug everywhere theory."???
I just realized that this guy (Rob Mensching) was the grader for my CS153 class at the University of Missouri - Rolla. It's cool to see some of our alums doing good things...
You mention inner city blacks. Well, how much better would they be _without_ government intervention? Would everyone spontaneously donate some of their money so that the less fortunate can get wellfare? Would everyone spontaneously donate some of their money for public schools? (However badly funded those schools may be, it's still better than nothing.) That's BS. Unless there was a government making you give up that money, noone would.
...
The US has some of the most charitable citizens in the world. I worked with various charities in college and can confirm this anecdotally as well as statistically.
Without a government doing something about it, chances are those blacks would have been still held at gunpoint to work on plantations until after World War 1. (When eventually agriculture started to have too much manpower, instead of too little.)
Can you back this up with evidence?
No, the government isn't perfect. No, the politicians aren't up to date on all technical issues. No, they're not always honest either.
But history shows that it still works better than just waiting for the problems to go away on their own.
Wrong again, governments (with cooperation from various corporations and groups of individuals) around the world have perpetrated evil things such as the Final Solution, Stalin's Purges, the Terror of the French Revolution, etc.
See the pressure mechanism I've described. Anyone trying to make a safe car couldn't have competed on price with those who sold a death trap on wheels. So you'd still be buying death traps on wheels, if there weren't some laws that changed the playing field.
Yep, a nasceant technology (such as the automobile was in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s) takes a while to work out the bugs. But have you noticed how vehicles are marketed today? "5-star crash ratings, etc." Plus, the insurance industry puts the hurt on those of us who choose to drive unsafe cars. Therefore, it's not merely government bringing about change.
The seatbelt laws, airbags, etc. are all well and good but how many of our fellow citizens actually wear them? Not many. An airbag makes your car more dangerous if you choose not to wear your seatbelt.
How are you going to legislate/enforce all of this? The amount of redundant/unenforceable regulation already on the books is driving your average working family into the ground.
I agree with you that government is not inherently evil, nor is it inherently good. Before you spout _your_ lemming like mantra that the "government can solve all of mankind's problems, just give it more time and money," please think about the burden you are placing on this nation's working poor.
PT Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
You're one of them if you believe that more government can solve your problems. Just ask inner city blacks how well the "War on Poverty" has gone for them...
History does not show again and again that this kind of thing needs laws. Human nature is such that it is impossible to completely protect people from their own ignorance and/or laziness.
At first I read this as "I renew my call for a Classless moderation category."
I had my Windows XP system totally die the other day so I called a local computer repair shop to fix it. The guy comes over, opens the case and plugs something he called a "power connector" back into a thing called a "hard drive"? Apparently, it had fallen out when I moved the computer from the living room into my office. It took him 2 minutes to fix the dang thing and get it up and running again.
Next week, I get the bill. $100 !?! It only took him two minutes to fix it! He reminds me of that college kid my company hired to program our stock system. They paid that kid nearly $45,000 a year and all he does is type for eight hours a day, anyone can do that!
Just my $100 worth.
Yes, but the assumption that man is the cause of this warming trend is not grounded on any hard scientific evidence. As of now we only have theories without any "hard" evidence, which is not enough to make good public policy with.
Take a few deep breaths, it's okay.
Venice is subsiding without the help of global warming, it has been for years (7cm a year for the past 1000 years). Please check your facts because when you try to use a bad example to back up your argument, you and your claims become as baseless as all of the other "treehuggers".
:) Take a deep breath and go back to coding or studying.
The sky isn't falling and you are not Chicken Little