So you can walk right out onto the tarmac with the planes if you happen to know the right person -- no security/background check required -- but you can't bring more than 3oz of breast milk onto your flight. Does anybody else see how stupid that is?
The international airport in my city is small enough that planes routinely unload you right on the tarmac, because the plane is too small to use the jetway, or for some other reasons unknown to me.
I just go back from FL; because our plane was 20 minutes arriving at the departing airport, we were of course 20 minutes late arriving. To unload the passengers more quickly, they brought stairs to the rear exits of the plane and half of the passengers go off there, and were pointed to the door to get them back into the terminal.
It happens less than it would if it were legal. I can't believe you're claiming otherwise.
I assume you have some proof to back up your claim? Seems to me illegal drug use has been rising, dispite the fact that it's illegal. Speed limits are another good example. They really don't work because no one listens to them anyway. I also tend to think though that people would have a harder time wanting to actually kill someone than speed.
"The rest"? No. But it only takes one person - one person who wouldn't have acted at all if not for the offer of cash.
Ahh.. so we should have bad, ineffective laws because of one person. Maybe we should ban words with more than two syllables, so stupid people have an easier time in life. Or better, let's go back to using pictures!
Just like no one would get trampled in that theater if not for the false alarm. Would you trample someone if you were trying to escape from a burning theater? I hope not, but there's still a good chance that someone would.
You make some heavy assumptions. I assume you have a study that says in an overwhelming majority of cases when there's a false alarm people are trampled? I don't have a study, but I have been through my fair number of false alarms.. no one yelled fire, but the fire alarm was activated. No one was trampled. I don't even recall a news story in my lifetime where a false fire alarm caused someone to be trampled to death... can you find some with-in the last 10 years? And then lookup an estimate of the number of false alarms that occur?
So make up your mind: is it OK in your opinion to call up a hit man and say "I'll give you $10,000 to kill this dude", or isn't it? Remember, until the money changes hands, it's just speech.
Just the act of calling is fine. But as soon as some other action takes place to carry out the hit, it becomes illegal. So money changing hands, the hitman buying a map or getting my address. Which is really funny I think that way, because that's how consipricy laws are written. But you seem to think that's not enough.
Sure - less often than if it were legal.
Offer evidence, not your speculation.
Oh, I'm being naive? I guess you've never heard of the concept of bounties. I suggest you read some history or current events - they've been commonly used in the past, and even today in the "war on terror".
Yes you are being naive. I've heard of bounties, and my contention is that the law doesn't reduce the amount of murder conspiricies. But please, offer me something that backs up your point, other than your speculation.
What's this, the fallacy of the excluded middle? As a matter of fact, I do believe that fewer people have unregistered guns than would if it were legal. Not none, but fewer.
First, all humans have rights, regardless of where they are born. Second, the Constitution is a set of restrictions on what GOVERNMENT may do. It doesn't say it can do one thing to citizens and another to non-citizens.
I caught that in the link and mentioned that data goes both ways on this. However, seeings as these men were convicted child molesters, it appears that using child porn as a release didn't work out too well for these guys.
It's quite possible that there are MANY other's that haven't been even arrested, let alone convicted, for whom it does provide a release that keeps them from doing actual harm. So the fact that it didn't work for the study group does not prove it doesn't work for others.
developed an appetite for more deviant, bizarre, or violent types of pornography (normal sex no longer seemed to do the job)
Again, what is "deviant" or "bizarre" would seem to depend on who you ask. As for violent, if both partners are ok with it, is there a problem? Also, I would classify my cats mating rituals as "violent" as well.
devalued the importance of monogamy and lacked confidence in marriage as either a viable or lasting institution
This is totally a subjective matter. There are many good arguments against marriage, and there are good arguments against pushing only monogamy.
viewed nonmonogamous relationships as normal and natural behaviorxi
Again, a totally subjective matter. I'm not aware of any other living being that IS managomous, so I question whether monogamy for humans is really the "normal and natural behavior."
It's not legal now, and I for one can't think of the last time I saw one citizen offering a cash bounty for another citizen's head.
Ahh, because you can't see it, it doesn't happen. I see.
The person who offers a big pile of money as an incentive to commit murder is causing an event that caused harm, too, but for some reason you don't want to prosecute him.
I thought you wouldn't commit murder for money though? Oh, I see, you're a special case, and the rest of the unwashed masses surely would. See, I can say something, and there's a good chance nothing will come from it. Remember, even people that WOULD kill for money wouldn't go out and kill without attempting to confirm, yes, there will be a paycheck. At that point though, the threat becomes very real. But there's also no guarantee that won't happen.
Still, it's just speech, right? You're contradicting yourself.
You may want to look at the legal definition of conspiracy. As a hint though, conspiracy requires you to actually take actions that would lead to harm, not just talk about it.
To discourage people from making the offer in the first place, obviously. No offer = no incentive for others to commit the murder.
The offer still gets made, only underground. Just as it would have been without the law on speech, by the way. One trying to hire another to kill a third person doesn't want that information out, because it at least gives the third party a chance to run. Again, you're being REALLY naive.
People that kill for money and those that hire them already are not listening to the law.. so what's the point of another law forbidding the speech? Do you think no one has an unregistered gun because possing unregistered guns is illegal?
So, which would you prefer: believing only the applicant's bullshit, or at least getting a few extra data points?
I think the problem is that you believe applicants are only "bullshitting" you. I wouldn't want to work in your company, because my resume has no BS on it.
Honestly, I don't know what you're arguing here. Yes, when you interview a reference, you're going to get their perspective, and it might be skewed. But if you ask the right questions, you'll get insight into an employee you otherwise wouldn't get. Meanwhile, professional references are far less likely to be prone to blind bias (they're professionals, after all), so you're likely to get useful experiential data from them.
You assume that a professional reference couldn't also be a personal one. Also, the norm now seems to be that references will only answer "yes, they worked here." That's been the policy told to all employees in every company in which I've worked.
The only thing I can figure is that you're arguing that reference checks are useless due to bias. But that is, frankly, silly. You'll *never* find out the real truth about an employee prior to hiring them. But the more data you can add to the mix ahead of time, the more likely you are to uncover issues with the prospective applicant that might otherwise go undiscovered until after you've already hired them.
Your argument seems to be that applicants lie, and so will references (because as you said, no smart applicant will give a bad reference to you). But you think that somehow combining the two yields something worth while?
If you think everyone you're talking to in the interview process is biased then what is the point of adding more biased people to the process?
Me, personally? No. But I'm sure some people would. By saying it's all right to offer large cash rewards for murder, you're making it legal for wealthy people to have their enemies killed, because there will always be someone who's willing to take up the offer if the price is right.
What, this doesn't happen now? That's pretty naive.
I got the impression that you agreed with me when you said you agreed with my examples where the harm is indirect.
It's not whether or not it's indirect; it's whether or not any actual harm has occured.
By your logic, shouldn't you prosecute the tramplers, not the guy who set off the panic in the first place? How can you be opposed to that indirect harm -- which may not have even been the yeller's intent -- while giving a free pass to the guy who hires a hit man?
Prosecute both. Why is it acceptable to trample over someone when you're trying to save yourself? The person that yelled fire in your example caused an event that caused harm.. so prosecute. If on the other hand everyone ignored him, tell him to leave (since he's distrupting the movie).
As for hiring a hitman, that's a bit different than announcing something on TV. In the former, you HAVE located someone that will do the killing. In the latter, most will ignore, those that don't ignore will kill someone for money whether or not you make it illegal. Which is absurd, because people conspiring to kill someone aren't going to say it out in the open anyway. So what is the point of making the speech itself illegal? At least if the threat went out over the TV, the target has a chance to hear about it and respond.
If Linux gets mainstream marketshare, I'm sure it will. Application vendors will want their applications installed by OEMs, I don't see why this problem is particular to Windows.
Wow... you care so little for your freedom and the freedoms of others you'd rather take the cowards way out? It's odd that you wouldn't want to live in a 'nation of gun-wielding rednecks,' since that's when America was most free. Obviously the resulting nation didn't decend into chaos and shoot everyone else to death, or we'd have no country today..
Funny, I have to be more accurate to hit the keys I actually want. I've been on computers for hours every day for almost 20 years now. The only time I thought I had CT was actually a pinched nerve from when I bumped my elbow on a sharp corner.
What bias can you hope to uncover? You already asserted (quite correctly, I think) that no applicant will give a reference unless they know they will get a good one. So I don't think it matters if you ask for one or three.. you're going to get ones that are going to be favorable.
I had linux on my server for 10 years, and on my desktop for six, and I did in indeed go back. Even go Windows Server 2003, to replace what had never been a windows server..
Wow, 200,000 people... out of how many millions and millions of Windows users around the world? Also, it's not like I couldn't create a bunch of email addresses and put in fake names and cities.
I think this petition shows just how small a minority it is that hates Vista so much they'd rather keep XP.
So, if I get on TV and say I'll give $10,000 to whoever brings me the severed head of plague3106, you'd say I haven't done anything wrong?
Nope. Those that actually attempt to harm me are the ones in the wrong. See, that's part of the problem today; more and more we're pushing responsiblity for one person's actions onto more and more people. But at the end of the day though, YOU are responsible for not harming someone else. I have to ask; if you saw an ad on TV that offered $10,000 for my head, would you go after it?
The point was to illustrate that most of us, even you, already accept that the right to free speech is sometimes overshadowed by other rights. Once we agree on that, we're just quibbling over which and when.
Not quite. Your rights don't extend to limiting or infringing on the rights of others. I don't know why you think I've accepted your beliefs, because I thought I made it pretty clear that I don't. If someone DID cause harm from yelling something, then it was never the person's right to yell. If no harm was done, then the person did have a right to say whatever they said. But we can't really know until after the fact.
Just as an aside, my wife and I went out to eat a while back. The special of the day advertised that it came with "AM fries". My wife asked "what are am fries?" and the waitress, looking appropriately embarrassed, responded, "those are American fries. They're just fries." Good lord, are we still doing that? That's sooo 2002!
I can honestly say I've never been to any restraunt that every renamed their fries.. maybe it was local to a certain part of the US? I was in the NE.
You're right; PC sales have historically been for faster, more capable computers. These "UMPCs" seem to be the opposite; not as powerful or capable, and so if you're shooting for your OS to run on PCs NOW and in the future, and not targeting older ones, there will be issues.
That said, MS isn't stupid, and they'll make sure SOMETHING MS runs on these.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh.. my wife used to try that. Then I stopped caring why she was upset if she refused to tell me.
So you can walk right out onto the tarmac with the planes if you happen to know the right person -- no security/background check required -- but you can't bring more than 3oz of breast milk onto your flight. Does anybody else see how stupid that is?
The international airport in my city is small enough that planes routinely unload you right on the tarmac, because the plane is too small to use the jetway, or for some other reasons unknown to me.
I just go back from FL; because our plane was 20 minutes arriving at the departing airport, we were of course 20 minutes late arriving. To unload the passengers more quickly, they brought stairs to the rear exits of the plane and half of the passengers go off there, and were pointed to the door to get them back into the terminal.
It happens less than it would if it were legal. I can't believe you're claiming otherwise.
I assume you have some proof to back up your claim? Seems to me illegal drug use has been rising, dispite the fact that it's illegal. Speed limits are another good example. They really don't work because no one listens to them anyway. I also tend to think though that people would have a harder time wanting to actually kill someone than speed.
"The rest"? No. But it only takes one person - one person who wouldn't have acted at all if not for the offer of cash.
Ahh.. so we should have bad, ineffective laws because of one person. Maybe we should ban words with more than two syllables, so stupid people have an easier time in life. Or better, let's go back to using pictures!
Just like no one would get trampled in that theater if not for the false alarm. Would you trample someone if you were trying to escape from a burning theater? I hope not, but there's still a good chance that someone would.
You make some heavy assumptions. I assume you have a study that says in an overwhelming majority of cases when there's a false alarm people are trampled? I don't have a study, but I have been through my fair number of false alarms.. no one yelled fire, but the fire alarm was activated. No one was trampled. I don't even recall a news story in my lifetime where a false fire alarm caused someone to be trampled to death... can you find some with-in the last 10 years? And then lookup an estimate of the number of false alarms that occur?
So make up your mind: is it OK in your opinion to call up a hit man and say "I'll give you $10,000 to kill this dude", or isn't it? Remember, until the money changes hands, it's just speech.
Just the act of calling is fine. But as soon as some other action takes place to carry out the hit, it becomes illegal. So money changing hands, the hitman buying a map or getting my address. Which is really funny I think that way, because that's how consipricy laws are written. But you seem to think that's not enough.
Sure - less often than if it were legal.
Offer evidence, not your speculation.
Oh, I'm being naive? I guess you've never heard of the concept of bounties. I suggest you read some history or current events - they've been commonly used in the past, and even today in the "war on terror".
Yes you are being naive. I've heard of bounties, and my contention is that the law doesn't reduce the amount of murder conspiricies. But please, offer me something that backs up your point, other than your speculation.
What's this, the fallacy of the excluded middle? As a matter of fact, I do believe that fewer people have unregistered guns than would if it were legal. Not none, but fewer.
As I said, naive.
First, all humans have rights, regardless of where they are born. Second, the Constitution is a set of restrictions on what GOVERNMENT may do. It doesn't say it can do one thing to citizens and another to non-citizens.
Rights aren't created or granted, they are inherent in all humans.
Actually, privacy at the border is limited to diplomats. Everybody else doesn't have any.
Funny, I didn't see anywhere in the Constitution that said I forfiet my rights when I leave or enter my own country.
Hmm, well given that humans are closer to primates, and birds aren't mammals, while you are technically right I don't see how it's really relevent.
I caught that in the link and mentioned that data goes both ways on this. However, seeings as these men were convicted child molesters, it appears that using child porn as a release didn't work out too well for these guys.
It's quite possible that there are MANY other's that haven't been even arrested, let alone convicted, for whom it does provide a release that keeps them from doing actual harm. So the fact that it didn't work for the study group does not prove it doesn't work for others.
Simple. If I have absolutely never heard of a product, how would I know it's available to buy it?
developed distorted perceptions about sexuality
Seems "distortion" would be a subject idea.
developed an appetite for more deviant, bizarre, or violent types of pornography (normal sex no longer seemed to do the job)
Again, what is "deviant" or "bizarre" would seem to depend on who you ask. As for violent, if both partners are ok with it, is there a problem? Also, I would classify my cats mating rituals as "violent" as well.
devalued the importance of monogamy and lacked confidence in marriage as either a viable or lasting institution
This is totally a subjective matter. There are many good arguments against marriage, and there are good arguments against pushing only monogamy.
viewed nonmonogamous relationships as normal and natural behaviorxi
Again, a totally subjective matter. I'm not aware of any other living being that IS managomous, so I question whether monogamy for humans is really the "normal and natural behavior."
It's not legal now, and I for one can't think of the last time I saw one citizen offering a cash bounty for another citizen's head.
Ahh, because you can't see it, it doesn't happen. I see.
The person who offers a big pile of money as an incentive to commit murder is causing an event that caused harm, too, but for some reason you don't want to prosecute him.
I thought you wouldn't commit murder for money though? Oh, I see, you're a special case, and the rest of the unwashed masses surely would. See, I can say something, and there's a good chance nothing will come from it. Remember, even people that WOULD kill for money wouldn't go out and kill without attempting to confirm, yes, there will be a paycheck. At that point though, the threat becomes very real. But there's also no guarantee that won't happen.
Still, it's just speech, right? You're contradicting yourself.
You may want to look at the legal definition of conspiracy. As a hint though, conspiracy requires you to actually take actions that would lead to harm, not just talk about it.
To discourage people from making the offer in the first place, obviously. No offer = no incentive for others to commit the murder.
The offer still gets made, only underground. Just as it would have been without the law on speech, by the way. One trying to hire another to kill a third person doesn't want that information out, because it at least gives the third party a chance to run. Again, you're being REALLY naive.
People that kill for money and those that hire them already are not listening to the law.. so what's the point of another law forbidding the speech? Do you think no one has an unregistered gun because possing unregistered guns is illegal?
So, which would you prefer: believing only the applicant's bullshit, or at least getting a few extra data points?
I think the problem is that you believe applicants are only "bullshitting" you. I wouldn't want to work in your company, because my resume has no BS on it.
Honestly, I don't know what you're arguing here. Yes, when you interview a reference, you're going to get their perspective, and it might be skewed. But if you ask the right questions, you'll get insight into an employee you otherwise wouldn't get. Meanwhile, professional references are far less likely to be prone to blind bias (they're professionals, after all), so you're likely to get useful experiential data from them.
You assume that a professional reference couldn't also be a personal one. Also, the norm now seems to be that references will only answer "yes, they worked here." That's been the policy told to all employees in every company in which I've worked.
The only thing I can figure is that you're arguing that reference checks are useless due to bias. But that is, frankly, silly. You'll *never* find out the real truth about an employee prior to hiring them. But the more data you can add to the mix ahead of time, the more likely you are to uncover issues with the prospective applicant that might otherwise go undiscovered until after you've already hired them.
Your argument seems to be that applicants lie, and so will references (because as you said, no smart applicant will give a bad reference to you). But you think that somehow combining the two yields something worth while?
If you think everyone you're talking to in the interview process is biased then what is the point of adding more biased people to the process?
Me, personally? No. But I'm sure some people would. By saying it's all right to offer large cash rewards for murder, you're making it legal for wealthy people to have their enemies killed, because there will always be someone who's willing to take up the offer if the price is right.
What, this doesn't happen now? That's pretty naive.
I got the impression that you agreed with me when you said you agreed with my examples where the harm is indirect.
It's not whether or not it's indirect; it's whether or not any actual harm has occured.
By your logic, shouldn't you prosecute the tramplers, not the guy who set off the panic in the first place? How can you be opposed to that indirect harm -- which may not have even been the yeller's intent -- while giving a free pass to the guy who hires a hit man?
Prosecute both. Why is it acceptable to trample over someone when you're trying to save yourself? The person that yelled fire in your example caused an event that caused harm.. so prosecute. If on the other hand everyone ignored him, tell him to leave (since he's distrupting the movie).
As for hiring a hitman, that's a bit different than announcing something on TV. In the former, you HAVE located someone that will do the killing. In the latter, most will ignore, those that don't ignore will kill someone for money whether or not you make it illegal. Which is absurd, because people conspiring to kill someone aren't going to say it out in the open anyway. So what is the point of making the speech itself illegal? At least if the threat went out over the TV, the target has a chance to hear about it and respond.
Assuming that there are no ballot box stuffers
Why would that possibly be a good assumption? It's a web form, there's no verification at all.
that's a sizable number of people
Out of hundreds of millions of Windows users? No, it's not.
And I'd dare say that a good chunk of them are probably decision makers responsible for other people's desktop O/S.
Another baseless assumption.
The general public does not read InfoWorld, or even realize that such a petition exists.
That must explain why I saw something about this exact petition on G4 TV a few weeks ago... and no one forwards websites to each other.
Are you breathing air, or pot smoke?
So your argument is that we are more free now with more laws on the books than 200 years ago? Very interesting proposition.
If Linux gets mainstream marketshare, I'm sure it will. Application vendors will want their applications installed by OEMs, I don't see why this problem is particular to Windows.
Wow... you care so little for your freedom and the freedoms of others you'd rather take the cowards way out? It's odd that you wouldn't want to live in a 'nation of gun-wielding rednecks,' since that's when America was most free. Obviously the resulting nation didn't decend into chaos and shoot everyone else to death, or we'd have no country today..
Funny, I have to be more accurate to hit the keys I actually want. I've been on computers for hours every day for almost 20 years now. The only time I thought I had CT was actually a pinched nerve from when I bumped my elbow on a sharp corner.
What bias can you hope to uncover? You already asserted (quite correctly, I think) that no applicant will give a reference unless they know they will get a good one. So I don't think it matters if you ask for one or three.. you're going to get ones that are going to be favorable.
I had linux on my server for 10 years, and on my desktop for six, and I did in indeed go back. Even go Windows Server 2003, to replace what had never been a windows server..
Wow, 200,000 people... out of how many millions and millions of Windows users around the world? Also, it's not like I couldn't create a bunch of email addresses and put in fake names and cities.
I think this petition shows just how small a minority it is that hates Vista so much they'd rather keep XP.
I don't think you know how PnP works then. You don't search online because Vista is bloated to the gills with decades worth of old drivers.
Um, isn't that exactly like Linux?
So, if I get on TV and say I'll give $10,000 to whoever brings me the severed head of plague3106, you'd say I haven't done anything wrong?
Nope. Those that actually attempt to harm me are the ones in the wrong. See, that's part of the problem today; more and more we're pushing responsiblity for one person's actions onto more and more people. But at the end of the day though, YOU are responsible for not harming someone else. I have to ask; if you saw an ad on TV that offered $10,000 for my head, would you go after it?
The point was to illustrate that most of us, even you, already accept that the right to free speech is sometimes overshadowed by other rights. Once we agree on that, we're just quibbling over which and when.
Not quite. Your rights don't extend to limiting or infringing on the rights of others. I don't know why you think I've accepted your beliefs, because I thought I made it pretty clear that I don't. If someone DID cause harm from yelling something, then it was never the person's right to yell. If no harm was done, then the person did have a right to say whatever they said. But we can't really know until after the fact.
Just as an aside, my wife and I went out to eat a while back. The special of the day advertised that it came with "AM fries". My wife asked "what are am fries?" and the waitress, looking appropriately embarrassed, responded, "those are American fries. They're just fries." Good lord, are we still doing that? That's sooo 2002!
I can honestly say I've never been to any restraunt that every renamed their fries.. maybe it was local to a certain part of the US? I was in the NE.
You're right; PC sales have historically been for faster, more capable computers. These "UMPCs" seem to be the opposite; not as powerful or capable, and so if you're shooting for your OS to run on PCs NOW and in the future, and not targeting older ones, there will be issues.
That said, MS isn't stupid, and they'll make sure SOMETHING MS runs on these.