2. Omniscient deity that can read your mind and plant thoughts in your brain = safe (good, even!)
To be fair, if you accept an omniscient deity that can read your mind exists, that said deity can do so without giving you cancer isn't much of a stretch.
E.g. "I am bleeding to death because that asshole shot me." instead of "I am bleeding to death because I failed to duck in time."
But your point and the article's point are not exclusive. Awareness of the ways that language shapes your thoughts can help you exert more control over your life and take greater responsibility for what happens to you.
I stopped caring about using about all my points long enough ago that I can't remember when. Of course, the first time I got them I was very excited, and they were rare enough for a while that I made a point of making sure I used them all.
I think I may have modded up something I disagreed with once or twice. It's not easy to do, and the ones I've modded up were generally in the "maybe I've been wrong about this the whole time" caliber. I've very much done the reverse though -- I've modded down plenty of things I agree with if the poster was more of an asshole than necessary or if the arguments were flimsy.
But lately most of my mod points end up going to subtle jokes that I think will go over too many heads.
I've had anti-piracy comments modded up in the past. Despite what some people say, slashdot is not a hive mind with a single opinion on everything.
The problem that many people here have with anti-piracy efforts however are quite reasonable:
1. The legal liability of having committed some form of infringement can exceed by orders of magnitude the liability of shoplifting the same content. 2. The legislation aimed at stopping piracy has considerable collateral damage. 3. Copyright duration is excessive far beyond reasonableness. Two schoolteachers wrote a little song in 1893 called "Good Morning to All". A few variations later and it morphed into the more familiar "Happy Birthday to You". Copyright for this was later filed in 1935 and under current US law does not expire until 2030. I am not aware of actually having met anyone who was alive when this song was written, though I'm told I briefly met my great-grandmother shortly after I was born. She would have been a young child when the song was written. 4. There are many indications that it's not necessarily even a revenue loss, or that if there is any revenue lost that the amount is significant. All damage estimates go by the assumption that a download == a lost sale. There is no guarantees that someone who pirated something would necessarily have bought it otherwise. This does not make their actions legal or moral, but from a fiscal perspective no harm has been done to the copyright holder.
The dichotomy you think you see (or claim to see) on slashdot is not a matter of "GPL infringement bad, media infringement good!" It's a matter of commercial vs non-commercial infringement. Most here will be hesitant to punish or call for strong penalties on a non-commercial infringer of any stripe, while being perfectly willing to see commercial infringers strung up. That can include both a company claiming GPL code as their own, or a guy selling illegal burned CDs/DVDs out of a warehouse somewhere.
I hold to the belief that the 'best' politicians (where 'best' here means having the most skill at being a politician) actually believe what they are saying while they are saying it. Before and after they know it's BS, but it's so much easier to come across as authentic if you truly believe in what you're saying, even if only for a short while.
The guy who used that name (F all people of two particular categories) is an asshole. But what's the crime here? It's not criminal to be a racist. It's not criminal to have racist opinions, nor to express those opinions.
The problem is more or less one you described though, of "who decides where the line is". Jerks like this are the price we have to pay. But if you don't defend guys like this, then sooner or later someone DOES decide where the line is, and the line will keep moving.
Amen to that. My job has been good to me, so if I won the lottery I'd probably stay on for a few months and help them find my replacement, and maybe put in some time getting the guy trained, but beyond that I'm gone.
I enjoy my job. There are things I enjoy more, but nobody is willing to pay me to do them. Take the money out of the equation and I'm going for what I like the most.
Somewhat similarly, The Godfather was Mario Puzo's third book. He wrote it expressly to be popular and to make money, after having written two critically acclaimed books that barely sold.
I'm also not assuming anything about a given person because they're a 'whatever-label-you-want-to-pick'. I think I was actually fairly explicit about that.
But the questions raised by a demonstrable correlation can be interesting. Let's take the one from the article, that engineers tend to be libertarians. Assuming for the moment that it's accurate (if 'libertarian' bothers you, try 'male' or 'nose pickers' or 'tea aficionados' or whatever makes you happy), it brings a few questions to mind:
1. Is there something about the libertarian mindset that finds engineering attractive? 2. Inversely, is there something about libertarianism that attracts engineers? 3. Is there something else that just happens to be common to both engineers and libertarians?
Those are just the obvious ones. You can wonder what makes these groups align without denying the individuality of any member of the group, and without making blanket assumptions about what characteristics a member of the group must have.
It's not a completely absurd concept. You'll have variation in any group, but it's not unreasonable to wonder if people in profession X tend to have a set of views described as Y. You'll never have 100% correlation, but if research suggests that, say, dog catchers tend to be pro-life, then it's silly to just ignore it. It doesn't mean that any given dog catcher has to hold that view, but when something trends like that there's usually a reason.
I think this thread hit Godwin about 5 or 6 posts upthread.
Semantic sidebar: is there an accepted method for referring to great-great-great-great-grandparent posts that isn't as clumsy sounding as what I just wrote? It's what I meant by 'upthread' but I can see that being less than perfectly clear.
I recently read Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. I particularly enjoy the section at the end where she explains her reasoning behind much of the 'fill in the gap' speculation, or why she chose one historian's version over another where they contradict, and even explains her outright embellishments. I can always respect a work where the author put in an immense amount of research.
Slashdot Mirror
First time through I actually didn't notice the word 'the' in front of English.
Yeah that's an original.
Having 3 kids who love Dr. Suess in his many and varied forms, I've always appreciated your sig when I've spotted one of your comments.
I have used social engineering to get past people that can speak the English real good,
Have you used it on anyone who could speak English really well?
We'll handle this question in the origami cloud.
If a seismologist makes any sort of clam
I was going to let it go, but since you did it twice,,,, make sure the clam is thoroughly cooked?
2. Omniscient deity that can read your mind and plant thoughts in your brain = safe (good, even!)
To be fair, if you accept an omniscient deity that can read your mind exists, that said deity can do so without giving you cancer isn't much of a stretch.
If we would prefer to not have the government in the bedroom, perhaps we should help by taking the anal sex jokes out of the political equation.
If you take the anal sex out of politics....
There has GOT to be a great line in there somewhere. It's just too damn early for me to think of it.
Oh? On second thought, I'd bet you'd notices oodles of other observables who matter.
3 digits. Not once, but twice! Beat that!
I was thinking a similar thing, though a different list:
1. Where do you live
2. Where are you willing to relocate to
Sometimes external is more appropriate.
E.g. "I am bleeding to death because that asshole shot me." instead of "I am bleeding to death because I failed to duck in time."
But your point and the article's point are not exclusive. Awareness of the ways that language shapes your thoughts can help you exert more control over your life and take greater responsibility for what happens to you.
I stopped caring about using about all my points long enough ago that I can't remember when. Of course, the first time I got them I was very excited, and they were rare enough for a while that I made a point of making sure I used them all.
I think I may have modded up something I disagreed with once or twice. It's not easy to do, and the ones I've modded up were generally in the "maybe I've been wrong about this the whole time" caliber. I've very much done the reverse though -- I've modded down plenty of things I agree with if the poster was more of an asshole than necessary or if the arguments were flimsy.
But lately most of my mod points end up going to subtle jokes that I think will go over too many heads.
Thank you.
If it's any consolation, I made it to 5 anyway.
Randomly aside, I've yet to receive 15 mod points in one shot. I'm guessing it's because I rarely use up all 5 when they give me that much.
I've had anti-piracy comments modded up in the past. Despite what some people say, slashdot is not a hive mind with a single opinion on everything.
The problem that many people here have with anti-piracy efforts however are quite reasonable:
1. The legal liability of having committed some form of infringement can exceed by orders of magnitude the liability of shoplifting the same content.
2. The legislation aimed at stopping piracy has considerable collateral damage.
3. Copyright duration is excessive far beyond reasonableness. Two schoolteachers wrote a little song in 1893 called "Good Morning to All". A few variations later and it morphed into the more familiar "Happy Birthday to You". Copyright for this was later filed in 1935 and under current US law does not expire until 2030. I am not aware of actually having met anyone who was alive when this song was written, though I'm told I briefly met my great-grandmother shortly after I was born. She would have been a young child when the song was written.
4. There are many indications that it's not necessarily even a revenue loss, or that if there is any revenue lost that the amount is significant. All damage estimates go by the assumption that a download == a lost sale. There is no guarantees that someone who pirated something would necessarily have bought it otherwise. This does not make their actions legal or moral, but from a fiscal perspective no harm has been done to the copyright holder.
The dichotomy you think you see (or claim to see) on slashdot is not a matter of "GPL infringement bad, media infringement good!" It's a matter of commercial vs non-commercial infringement. Most here will be hesitant to punish or call for strong penalties on a non-commercial infringer of any stripe, while being perfectly willing to see commercial infringers strung up. That can include both a company claiming GPL code as their own, or a guy selling illegal burned CDs/DVDs out of a warehouse somewhere.
I hold to the belief that the 'best' politicians (where 'best' here means having the most skill at being a politician) actually believe what they are saying while they are saying it. Before and after they know it's BS, but it's so much easier to come across as authentic if you truly believe in what you're saying, even if only for a short while.
Trains
Bus Stops and Weigh Stations
Can't say I've heard anything about post offices or unemployment or social security buildings.
The guy who used that name (F all people of two particular categories) is an asshole. But what's the crime here? It's not criminal to be a racist. It's not criminal to have racist opinions, nor to express those opinions.
The problem is more or less one you described though, of "who decides where the line is". Jerks like this are the price we have to pay. But if you don't defend guys like this, then sooner or later someone DOES decide where the line is, and the line will keep moving.
Amen to that. My job has been good to me, so if I won the lottery I'd probably stay on for a few months and help them find my replacement, and maybe put in some time getting the guy trained, but beyond that I'm gone.
I enjoy my job. There are things I enjoy more, but nobody is willing to pay me to do them. Take the money out of the equation and I'm going for what I like the most.
Somewhat similarly, The Godfather was Mario Puzo's third book. He wrote it expressly to be popular and to make money, after having written two critically acclaimed books that barely sold.
I have no desire to pigeon hole anything.
I'm also not assuming anything about a given person because they're a 'whatever-label-you-want-to-pick'. I think I was actually fairly explicit about that.
But the questions raised by a demonstrable correlation can be interesting. Let's take the one from the article, that engineers tend to be libertarians. Assuming for the moment that it's accurate (if 'libertarian' bothers you, try 'male' or 'nose pickers' or 'tea aficionados' or whatever makes you happy), it brings a few questions to mind:
1. Is there something about the libertarian mindset that finds engineering attractive?
2. Inversely, is there something about libertarianism that attracts engineers?
3. Is there something else that just happens to be common to both engineers and libertarians?
Those are just the obvious ones. You can wonder what makes these groups align without denying the individuality of any member of the group, and without making blanket assumptions about what characteristics a member of the group must have.
It's not a completely absurd concept. You'll have variation in any group, but it's not unreasonable to wonder if people in profession X tend to have a set of views described as Y. You'll never have 100% correlation, but if research suggests that, say, dog catchers tend to be pro-life, then it's silly to just ignore it. It doesn't mean that any given dog catcher has to hold that view, but when something trends like that there's usually a reason.
And to think my mod points have all expired...
I think this thread hit Godwin about 5 or 6 posts upthread.
Semantic sidebar: is there an accepted method for referring to great-great-great-great-grandparent posts that isn't as clumsy sounding as what I just wrote? It's what I meant by 'upthread' but I can see that being less than perfectly clear.
I recently read Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. I particularly enjoy the section at the end where she explains her reasoning behind much of the 'fill in the gap' speculation, or why she chose one historian's version over another where they contradict, and even explains her outright embellishments. I can always respect a work where the author put in an immense amount of research.
WTF is wrong with you? His name is cashman73. Stop calling him Shirley.