That money might be much better spent if you find someone in need and help them out. Keep the kids as involved as possible.
How is it any more generous to gift money to random strangers instead of your children? And how is this supposed to teach said children anything except that generosity means they don't get anything?
Try to ignore the reference in this thread that is making you so emotional (Obama? evolution? global warming?) and read my comment again.
Ah, condescension. Is it there as an attempt to provoke, or purely to prop your self-esteem?
This time maybe you will understand that I was not advocating having only consensual comments appearing in the forum, but rather the opposite.
Bullshit. The whole point of your proposed system is, according to yourself:
If there was a way to say: "this comment is junk" (like rude homosexual african-american bashing) but "that comment is not junk but I disagree with it" (like someone challenging linux as desktop os) it would be possible to have actual discussions and people could choose the level of dissension from the majority they are comfortable with.
In other words, make sure that comments that don't follow the party line get hidden, least they offend anyone's tender sensibilities.
The problem that I describe about the moderation system is that people have no way to express their dislike about a comment that is different from flagging a comment that is purely junk.
Yes, there is. It's called "Reply to This". It leads to a form where you can type in the reason you agree or disagree, which other people can then judge in turn.
Right now if there is a story about Windows 8 and I read it a few hours after it's been released, I can either choose to hide all the junk comments but also miss the threads where someone dared say that Metro is a better design than the Apple GUI (and got modded down by fanbois), or I can display everything and be exposed to spam and crap like those long weird sex stories. This is not granular enough.
And do you think "fanboys" and paid astroturfers are going to distinguish between these?
But, more generally: yes, an unfiltered discussion is going to have lots of crap in it. That's the price of not having censorship.
That is the flaw of the moderation system; it's mostly statements that make consensus among the voting crowd that remain visible, everything else is modded down with no distinction between actual trolls, obvious spammers and dissenting voices. This is no different from Putin sending those rocker girls to the same jail where they hold common criminals and actual terrorists.
Well, no different except that no one is sent anywhere and nothing is removed. In other words, extremely different.
Maybe there is a missing dimension in the moderation system so people who just want to read comments from people who think exactly like them can do so without preventing actual discussions to go on.
That's a feature, not a bug. The whole point of a discussion forum is to discuss, not stroke anyone's ego with confirmations about how correct they are. If you want that, go visit liberal/conservative/evangelist/atheist/islamist/whatever forums. Or better yet, go visit a psychiatrist, have your insecurity issues fixed, and partake in actual debate - and yes, that means that someone might actually prove you wrong. And it hurts when it happens. But it's not actually dangerous, you'll be stronger after you've gotten over it, and there's no reason whatsoever why the Slashdot moderation system should insulate you from reality (which is the only way to keep it from happening).
Just like calling someone here on/. "Anonymous Coward" is a sign in itself of the general view on anonymous people which is quite immature, and ready for a change into something more neutral like "Anonymous".
My real name is not ultranova. Yes, shocking I know. But really, my real name is not ultranova. It's just an online pseudonym I use here, which lets me create a narrative about my posts here, and lets other people judge that narrative as they will. And it also allows me to see how that reaction is going, and should it turn unanomously negative - should I be modded down constantly - I could perhaps analyze the criticism and see if it has a point.
So no, the thing about "Anonymous Coward" is not that anonymity is bad in the sense that you all should know my real name, no, it's about establishing an indentity within this forum and using that to have a debate. The day might come that ultranova disappears to the annals of history, but I, the real human being behind it, will still be here. And I'll remember all the criticism ultranova encountered, whether I agree with it or not. Contrast this with the Anonymous Coward, who can't learn for the simple reason that he can't easily track answers to himself.
Anonymity is good, but pseudonymity is even better, at least as far as the purposes of Slashdot and public debate in general go.
It should be the decision of the plaintiffs to provide that information as evidence, not the position of the judge to order private information.
The plaintiff's facebook posts can't possibly be evidence for her, because if she made a false charge then of course she could post lies supporting it in preparation. On the other hand, they can be evidence against her ("heh, I'm totally gonna fleece that sucker"), so the defence should have access to the relevant bits. And that means that someone - such as a judge - must go through them and decide what is relevant to the case and what is not.
Fair trial requires investigations. That can't be helped.
The problem, as you point out, is that people don't get the basics, so why compound the problem with lousy reporting?
People don't want to get the basics due to the implications, so it doesn't matter how they are reported, or if at all. Some excuse to ignore inconvenient facts can always be found, thus justifying not dealing with the problem right now and delaying the associated pain.
If we put society over the individual, we will always slide into some form of despotism/dictatorship/oligarchy, the old saying goes, "absolute power corrupts absolutely".
And if we put the individual over the society, we will also slide into some form of despotism, because those individuals who manage to get power have little reason not to screw over the society (also known as "everyone else").
When you have the few controlling the majority that's bound to happen at least as history shown us.
You will always have the few controlling the majority. The only thing that varies is how those few gain their power (birthright, money, elections...). That's precisely the problem with capitalism: it will lead to the few rich controlling the poor majority. And indeed, it was the abuses of those few which gave birth to communism - which then simply led to a different bunch abusing everyone below them, and each other too.
The best way to combat this problem that we've come up with is to make those in power accountable to those below them. This is the modern democratic system, of course. And unregulated free market is a problem for it, since it allows people to gain power (money) without accompanying accountability.
With great power comes great responsibility - or tyranny. And capitalism is all about removing any and all responsibility besides your own conscience. And it turns out people are extremely good at lying to themselves.
On the other hand, the Patent system works well when viewed in its historical context. They have been a net benefit for innovation. . For example, there are many fewer patents lawsuits regarding Smart Phones than there were in the time the original telephone was invented.
That the patent system is putting less sand in the gears of industry now than it did in the past in no way implies that it's been a net benefit for innovation. Your example does not back your assertion.
If the Europeans want in on the payment processing business then they should create a competing company, not use big government to attempt to seize power over American companies.
Europeans can't seize power over American companies due to not having physical capacity to do so. On the other hand, Europeans can seize power over the portions of international corporations that operate within EU. And why shouldn't they? "Big government" is not a boogeyman in Europe, so appeals to it are not a sufficient reason.
Why on Earth should any country avoid seizing power over its own territory and the companies that operate there? Do you think companies are sovereigns?
Which is why it's so hard for the rest of the world to not buy into the deluge of photos of dead children, supposedly from Palestine. I mean seriously, I've seen more photos of dead children than the official numbers stated. It seems anti-semitic propaganda is alive and well in 2012.
Criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism. However, attempts attempts to paint it as such will make actual anti-semitism more socially acceptable.
Also, you might want to keep your hobbies private in the future. They're kinda creepy.
I have been bullied and I bullied others, when you are in a ring you fight, you won't win every fight, but you have to punch back, this is the only way, like it or not.
School is not a ring, students are not pricefighters, and a bully trying to excuse his inexcusible behaviour by pretending they are is no reason to change this.
The whole issue of bullying is based on the ridiculous premise that we shouldn't simply force a few pint-sized sociopaths to behave.
But, hey, if the douches in Washington can play the "intellectual property" game, then why not some Africans?
Africans don't have nukes.
You can only get away with douchbaggery if you're the biggest bully around. If you aren't, and you still try it, you end up with a bloody nose. Of course the alternative is having your lunch money stolen by the bully, so it's not surprising hungry people might be desperate enough to try.
Am I the only one who finds it depressing that world politics can be easily summarized as an unsupervised schoolyard?
If that means that their space industry is precluded from using the best competitor in the field, then it's going to hurt the EU in the long term.
It will hurt the people who want to launch satellites. It will help the people who want to build rockets. IMHO the latter industry is the more important one, thus protectionism could well end up helping the EU.
Of course this is all assuming the EU will actually bother. Right now we have no reason to think it will, aside from speculation on Slashdot.
It all comes down to the individual. You might like the "it takes a village" concept better, but it has little to no basis in reality. Reality is that you have it or you don't, and if you don't no amount of government "help" is going to make the difference.
It takes the guy who hung the power lines for your business to get electricity. It takes the guy who paved the roads for you, your products and your customers to move on. It takes the guys who defend the borders and those who guard your business at night. It takes actual employees unless your brave new business is a one-man miracle. It takes customers and it takes suppliers. And it takes someone to take the trash out.
You might like the "I need nobody" concept better, but it has no basis whatsoever in reality. Reality is that you either live in a village or redefine success as "I found tasty worms and outran the bear today".
Setting and enforcing house rules is NOT censorship.
Of course it is, just not government censorship. And censorship - limiting the allowed topics of and positions in conversations - is harmful no matter the source, especially since more and more public spaces are actually commercial ventures.
From "free speech" you can not derive a right to speak (or write) in someone elses newspaper, tv station or website.
Of course you can. There's no inherent reason why power - which money is just a form of - shouldn't come with responsibilities. A popular enough website could certainly be deemed influential enough that allowing it to practice censorship causes a public harm. It's simply a matter of priorities.
Being faster doesn't mean much when your game is 100's of times less detailed and has much less content because chips are more expensive and infinitely smaller.
But all that loaded data has to go somewhere, and consoles have traditionally had little memory. That means that in order to get large, detailed levels you need to stream data from the game media to memory in real time. And at that point the speed of media becomes a limiting factor for your level of detail.
Yes. As long as "loser" stays a perjorative with implied stigma and/or a license to be treated as anything less than an average human being, they will be, for the simple reason that for one winner there will always be several losers, thus making the average person a loser. That current society requires 99 losers for 1 winner simply makes that more so.
It was the 1% that declared war on the 99%, not the other way around.
You don't see 1 in 100 people being able to walk through without scrutiny.
Of course you don't, they don't take the regular flights but have private jets. Which would be fine by itself, it's not that much of a burden on other people, but it's not enough for them. They're never happy as long as anyone else has anything at all.
NO! The judgement is complete once they found no trace of explosive materials
Unless it's a chemical weapon.
Just imagine: a plane flies at 30,000 ft, when all of the sudden this guy takes his boots off. The smell fills the cabin. People run for the windows and try to smash them, willing to suck the near-vacuum just to be rid of it. The pilots turn the plane to a desperate nosedive towards sweet, thick, clean air. And the sweat-footed terrrorist passes out with a contented smile on his face, certain that all on the plane will join him in heaven for hell has already been visited upon them.
And now you know why you must remove your shoes before boarding the plane.
All the carriers offer signature required services.
No. I mean, how will the government ensure that official communications reach Joe Nobody, -1 Nowhere? A commercial carrier will not do it since it's only profitable to run a regular service in densely populated areas. So either we accept that rural areas are incommunicado, or we subsidize the communication infrastructure there. And USPS is probably one of the cheapest options for that, especially since the existence of somewhat reliable communication infrastructure that can reach anywhere helps bolster business models such as Amazon which might well end up paying for it.
Of course we could either explicitly or effectively declare low-population areas to be off-limits for anyone except those rich enough to pay to have their postage forwarded from the nearest big city, but that could end up costing far more than just money.
Our government should do two things: First, release all the idiotic regulation of the post office as they have requested, and let them sink or swim on their own, and second, when the end comes, congress should let the post office sink... Private industry can and will step in.
How will the government ensure that official communications - such as court summons - reach their targets? Will it - that is, you, assuming you pay taxes - pay a courier service to deliver them? In which case private industry can and will squeeze it for every last cent it can. Or will citizens be required to report to, say, their local town hall at certain interval to check if there's such communications for them (and be penalized if there is and they won't)?
I find most libertarians are only in favor of the freedoms they personally like.
All libertarians are only in favor of the freedoms they personally like, otherwise they'd be called anarchists (the state doesn't interfere with anything -> for all intents and purposes the state does not exist).
Also, at least on Slashdot libertarianism seems to mean a pro-corporate and anti-union position (corporations may collude, workers may not), so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's less about a coherent ideology and more about propaganda appealing to people's egos to get them to act against their own interests - after all, everyone is better than average at their job, the same way that everyone is better than average at driving, and would thus be "limited" by an union.
You could have the Bitcoin client/network support more than one currency with different rules, either through multiple blockchains or a single blockchain and a new type of transaction to start a new currency. You could then trade between them within the Bitcoin system itself without needing to involve external exchanges.
Slashdot Mirror
How is it any more generous to gift money to random strangers instead of your children? And how is this supposed to teach said children anything except that generosity means they don't get anything?
Ah, condescension. Is it there as an attempt to provoke, or purely to prop your self-esteem?
Bullshit. The whole point of your proposed system is, according to yourself:
In other words, make sure that comments that don't follow the party line get hidden, least they offend anyone's tender sensibilities.
Yes, there is. It's called "Reply to This". It leads to a form where you can type in the reason you agree or disagree, which other people can then judge in turn.
And do you think "fanboys" and paid astroturfers are going to distinguish between these?
But, more generally: yes, an unfiltered discussion is going to have lots of crap in it. That's the price of not having censorship.
Mighty words for "sydneyfong".
Well, no different except that no one is sent anywhere and nothing is removed. In other words, extremely different.
That's a feature, not a bug. The whole point of a discussion forum is to discuss, not stroke anyone's ego with confirmations about how correct they are. If you want that, go visit liberal/conservative/evangelist/atheist/islamist/whatever forums. Or better yet, go visit a psychiatrist, have your insecurity issues fixed, and partake in actual debate - and yes, that means that someone might actually prove you wrong. And it hurts when it happens. But it's not actually dangerous, you'll be stronger after you've gotten over it, and there's no reason whatsoever why the Slashdot moderation system should insulate you from reality (which is the only way to keep it from happening).
My real name is not ultranova. Yes, shocking I know. But really, my real name is not ultranova. It's just an online pseudonym I use here, which lets me create a narrative about my posts here, and lets other people judge that narrative as they will. And it also allows me to see how that reaction is going, and should it turn unanomously negative - should I be modded down constantly - I could perhaps analyze the criticism and see if it has a point.
So no, the thing about "Anonymous Coward" is not that anonymity is bad in the sense that you all should know my real name, no, it's about establishing an indentity within this forum and using that to have a debate. The day might come that ultranova disappears to the annals of history, but I, the real human being behind it, will still be here. And I'll remember all the criticism ultranova encountered, whether I agree with it or not. Contrast this with the Anonymous Coward, who can't learn for the simple reason that he can't easily track answers to himself.
Anonymity is good, but pseudonymity is even better, at least as far as the purposes of Slashdot and public debate in general go.
The plaintiff's facebook posts can't possibly be evidence for her, because if she made a false charge then of course she could post lies supporting it in preparation. On the other hand, they can be evidence against her ("heh, I'm totally gonna fleece that sucker"), so the defence should have access to the relevant bits. And that means that someone - such as a judge - must go through them and decide what is relevant to the case and what is not.
Fair trial requires investigations. That can't be helped.
People don't want to get the basics due to the implications, so it doesn't matter how they are reported, or if at all. Some excuse to ignore inconvenient facts can always be found, thus justifying not dealing with the problem right now and delaying the associated pain.
And if we put the individual over the society, we will also slide into some form of despotism, because those individuals who manage to get power have little reason not to screw over the society (also known as "everyone else").
You will always have the few controlling the majority. The only thing that varies is how those few gain their power (birthright, money, elections...). That's precisely the problem with capitalism: it will lead to the few rich controlling the poor majority. And indeed, it was the abuses of those few which gave birth to communism - which then simply led to a different bunch abusing everyone below them, and each other too.
The best way to combat this problem that we've come up with is to make those in power accountable to those below them. This is the modern democratic system, of course. And unregulated free market is a problem for it, since it allows people to gain power (money) without accompanying accountability.
With great power comes great responsibility - or tyranny. And capitalism is all about removing any and all responsibility besides your own conscience. And it turns out people are extremely good at lying to themselves.
That the patent system is putting less sand in the gears of industry now than it did in the past in no way implies that it's been a net benefit for innovation. Your example does not back your assertion.
Europeans can't seize power over American companies due to not having physical capacity to do so. On the other hand, Europeans can seize power over the portions of international corporations that operate within EU. And why shouldn't they? "Big government" is not a boogeyman in Europe, so appeals to it are not a sufficient reason.
Why on Earth should any country avoid seizing power over its own territory and the companies that operate there? Do you think companies are sovereigns?
Criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism. However, attempts attempts to paint it as such will make actual anti-semitism more socially acceptable.
Also, you might want to keep your hobbies private in the future. They're kinda creepy.
School is not a ring, students are not pricefighters, and a bully trying to excuse his inexcusible behaviour by pretending they are is no reason to change this.
The whole issue of bullying is based on the ridiculous premise that we shouldn't simply force a few pint-sized sociopaths to behave.
Africans don't have nukes.
You can only get away with douchbaggery if you're the biggest bully around. If you aren't, and you still try it, you end up with a bloody nose. Of course the alternative is having your lunch money stolen by the bully, so it's not surprising hungry people might be desperate enough to try.
Am I the only one who finds it depressing that world politics can be easily summarized as an unsupervised schoolyard?
It will hurt the people who want to launch satellites. It will help the people who want to build rockets. IMHO the latter industry is the more important one, thus protectionism could well end up helping the EU.
Of course this is all assuming the EU will actually bother. Right now we have no reason to think it will, aside from speculation on Slashdot.
It takes the guy who hung the power lines for your business to get electricity. It takes the guy who paved the roads for you, your products and your customers to move on. It takes the guys who defend the borders and those who guard your business at night. It takes actual employees unless your brave new business is a one-man miracle. It takes customers and it takes suppliers. And it takes someone to take the trash out.
You might like the "I need nobody" concept better, but it has no basis whatsoever in reality. Reality is that you either live in a village or redefine success as "I found tasty worms and outran the bear today".
Of course it is, just not government censorship. And censorship - limiting the allowed topics of and positions in conversations - is harmful no matter the source, especially since more and more public spaces are actually commercial ventures.
Of course you can. There's no inherent reason why power - which money is just a form of - shouldn't come with responsibilities. A popular enough website could certainly be deemed influential enough that allowing it to practice censorship causes a public harm. It's simply a matter of priorities.
But all that loaded data has to go somewhere, and consoles have traditionally had little memory. That means that in order to get large, detailed levels you need to stream data from the game media to memory in real time. And at that point the speed of media becomes a limiting factor for your level of detail.
Over a third of the world has Internet access. But conservatives rarely let facts affect their opinions.
Yes. As long as "loser" stays a perjorative with implied stigma and/or a license to be treated as anything less than an average human being, they will be, for the simple reason that for one winner there will always be several losers, thus making the average person a loser. That current society requires 99 losers for 1 winner simply makes that more so.
It was the 1% that declared war on the 99%, not the other way around.
Of course you don't, they don't take the regular flights but have private jets. Which would be fine by itself, it's not that much of a burden on other people, but it's not enough for them. They're never happy as long as anyone else has anything at all.
Unless it's a chemical weapon.
Just imagine: a plane flies at 30,000 ft, when all of the sudden this guy takes his boots off. The smell fills the cabin. People run for the windows and try to smash them, willing to suck the near-vacuum just to be rid of it. The pilots turn the plane to a desperate nosedive towards sweet, thick, clean air. And the sweat-footed terrrorist passes out with a contented smile on his face, certain that all on the plane will join him in heaven for hell has already been visited upon them.
And now you know why you must remove your shoes before boarding the plane.
No. I mean, how will the government ensure that official communications reach Joe Nobody, -1 Nowhere? A commercial carrier will not do it since it's only profitable to run a regular service in densely populated areas. So either we accept that rural areas are incommunicado, or we subsidize the communication infrastructure there. And USPS is probably one of the cheapest options for that, especially since the existence of somewhat reliable communication infrastructure that can reach anywhere helps bolster business models such as Amazon which might well end up paying for it.
Of course we could either explicitly or effectively declare low-population areas to be off-limits for anyone except those rich enough to pay to have their postage forwarded from the nearest big city, but that could end up costing far more than just money.
How will the government ensure that official communications - such as court summons - reach their targets? Will it - that is, you, assuming you pay taxes - pay a courier service to deliver them? In which case private industry can and will squeeze it for every last cent it can. Or will citizens be required to report to, say, their local town hall at certain interval to check if there's such communications for them (and be penalized if there is and they won't)?
All libertarians are only in favor of the freedoms they personally like, otherwise they'd be called anarchists (the state doesn't interfere with anything -> for all intents and purposes the state does not exist).
Also, at least on Slashdot libertarianism seems to mean a pro-corporate and anti-union position (corporations may collude, workers may not), so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's less about a coherent ideology and more about propaganda appealing to people's egos to get them to act against their own interests - after all, everyone is better than average at their job, the same way that everyone is better than average at driving, and would thus be "limited" by an union.
Your minions ran out of mod points?
You could have the Bitcoin client/network support more than one currency with different rules, either through multiple blockchains or a single blockchain and a new type of transaction to start a new currency. You could then trade between them within the Bitcoin system itself without needing to involve external exchanges.