I think it's a pretty awful one on the part of the UK government. The Google manipulation might be new, but the New Labour government has been funding and supporting *approved* versions of Islam for quite a while. Why is this a bad thing? First and foremost, it is NOT the government's job to be promoting any particular religion to anyone. Ever. It is not where I want my tax money going and even if I did want to support a particular religion, the ethical thing to do would be for me to support it directly, not have a supposedly democratic government do it.
Secondly, this is domestically counter-productive to their actual aims. A religion or culture needs to change from the inside. Quite frankly, the government's stamp of approval on a religious person does nothing to lend them credibility and a lot to undermine it. If someone is trying to persuade you that they can explain God's words to you, then the last thing that will help is our despised UK government, responsible for uncounted muslim deaths, overtly manipulating you in that direction.
Thirdly, this sort of behaviour is pretty bad internationally across the muslim world. It's bad enough when a country invades a country and plunders its oil, but it might be even worse when you can see it actively trying to change the beliefs of your children to accord with a different version of your religion that suits it better.
Neither dictionary definitions nor common usage of "censorship" require that it be done in secret. I know for example that the UK government censored a paper on terrorism and can even point you at the source of this paper, but it is still on their censored list and they have arrested a UK academic who downloaded it.
That is why international monitoring of shark sales is so critical. Should laser-possessing members of Anonymous get their hands on one, then they will finally have everything that they need.
Most of the people I know would moan a bit but accept it if an effective method of stopping them file-sharing were found. The reason for the acceptance would be that most people I know willingly admit that it is wrong to download copyrighted materials without paying, but do it anyway. They wouldn't really begrudge copyright holders from trying to stop them so long as the fines are in proportion and the methods not too destructive.
It's only really online that I find this near-religious attitude (in places like Slashdot, predominantly US population) where people are determined to make any argument and split any term (the "copyright infringement isn't theft" brigade for example) to show that they're actually doing nothing wrong and that an industry that is described in more terms of vaudevillian evil every month is to blame for all their ills.
Oddly, I find the less hypocritical "I'm doing something a bit wrong but I'm not going to get caught" majority less irritating.
"Piracy proponents" aren't provoking these measures; the bloated copyright-based industries are. Try directing your anger at the people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology, not the people who want to share information and be left alone.
Take a look at the link I posted to the organization I financially support. You will see that one of our activities is opposing copyright term extension in Europe, briefing MEPs and the media on the subject. What have you done to fight "people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology" ?
As to "bloated copyright industries" why do you omit the many small labels and artists and writers and game producers and others who also depend on copyright to be able to sell their work for whatever price they can find accords with public desire for their work? The Internet has provided the first opportunity in a long time to subvert giant music labels by letter artists connect to their public directly and en masse. And you want to take that opportunity away from them?
P.s. So stop being so obnoxiously self-righteous saying the problem is "people like me". And stop shifting the scope. Did I say anything about extending copyright terms? No I didn't. You introduced that particular straw man.
I am one of the original founding members of the Open Rights Group in the UK and I've several times debated with my elected representatives about protecting various freedoms on the Internet. I don't have "battered wife syndrome" and I do take active steps to try and protect my freedoms. I don't know anything about you, but there's a good chance I've done more than you have to try and keep the Internet free. But that doesn't mean I need to disregard facts that seem inconvenient. Wide-spread piracy provides a powerful justification for attempts to stop it. And I don't know of any methods of stopping it that don't have the rights of innocent people stepped on as collateral damage, or that don't allow an opening for the government to insert a little scope-creep for political purposes. So in addition to fighting against infringements of my freedom, I (like the earlier poster) point out the flaws in the arguments of piracy proponents who are provoking a lot of these measures for the sake of not paying for music or movies or books.
He's not alone. For everyone who posts something, there are usually a lot who don't but think the same. I am very much against some of the measures that are being proposed for combating piracy, but I recognize that people's behaviour in such widespread copyright infringement has provoked such measures and given a certain amount of legitimacy to them. The GP is right - this isn't sustainable and if it progresses, it's just going to wreck aspects of the Internet for all of us and, sadly, damage the ability of artists to sell their material without having to depend on a big label to manage it for them.
Call them on it. Put your letter and their reply side by side on a website. Show the complete disconnect. Laugh at them. True, you wont get the entire population of the country looking at that site, but if you posted a link in a few places where it's on topic (here and now as example), then you could have a fair bit of attention. And perhaps enough to force a better reply from them.
If the producers of a televison show want to create particular impression of a group of people, they'll pick the people they think will create that impression. There really is no patch for biased media, except replacing it with non-biased media. The best you can do is make such a name for yourself that they have to use you to represent a particular view, and can't select someone else without it being an obvious dodging of debate.
I saw a crashed ATM in the UK some years ago that appeared to be running either NT or Windows 2000. Something from around that era, anyway. It was pretty disturbing to see a floating "illegal operation" dialog box on a screen I had previously assumed was some simple and secure dedicated system.
Call me when you find these "men who are less interested in sex".
I know you're being funny, but apparently there's actually a significant number: Link.
Apparently Alfred Kinsey's pioneering research into sexual behaviour turned up about 1.5% of the male population as having no significant desire to have sex whilst otherwise healthy (they even enjoy masturbation - it just isn't focused on anyone). According to the article, it's become acceptable to admit to straight or gay orientation but not having an orientation at all is still a source of great embarrassment and suspicion.
That's plenty of people (even males) who are quite naturally not interested in fighting over partners.
"Slippery Slope arguements are fallacy's. There is no proof that one step forward equates the same thing as ensuring that someone is going to go the full nine yards, or even that if they were, they'd end up where you want to paint them as going."
Oh not this crap again. If I see some people take a few steps toward a cliff, I say "hey - that's dangerous where you're heading." I don't expect someone to leap out and try to stop me speaking shouting 'just because they've walked some way in a bad direction doesn't mean they'll keep on walking that way.' Well no, it's not conclusive proof, but when you have definite forces pushing for something and you see concessions starting to be made, then it's legitimate to speak out against them. And what makes the difference between whether those people walk off the cliff or not might just be those people warning at the start that they are starting to take steps in a dangerous direction.
Pointing out that we're on a slippery slope is a warning, not normally a prophecy. It says continue in this direction and it's going to come to a bad end. And the second point about the slope is that it's slippery. Once steps are taken, it can be hard to take them back - for example making an organisation un-ban words again.
That, and select somewhat more... affectionate... women than average, that way no-one will be left out.;)
Male point of view, much? Maybe they could send men who are less interested in sex instead? Or maybe, when faced with men fighting over the woman in the original experiment, they could have just taken a more sensible option and just select all women.
You're not alone. Many of us have such traumatic experiences. We should form a support group. But the concern isn't what's been, it's what is. I knew someone doing their teacher training in the UK two years ago. As part of their mandatory IT qualification, they had to learn to create and use Access databases. The only thing worse than the fact they were teaching Access, was how they taught it. Nothing at all about database theory - just drag this box here, create a form there. And even that they did by hurried rote without explanation or depth. I suspect there's a whole new generation out there waiting to be mentally scarred as we have been.
Per-incident support. How I would like per-incident support in other areas! Although perhaps on second thoughts, if this became the general model it would encourage people to submit buggy code to O/S projects, so perhaps it wouldn't be great.:)
Re:The sociology of MySQL is interesting.
on
Locating the Real MySQL
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It's not that much of a flame war. At the time of posting, most of the comments I see in favour of PostgreSQL are saying that MySQL is fine but for one reason or another they prefer PostgreSQL. And that's actually my position too. I enjoy designing databases and that is true on any system. I've done some of my best work on MySQL - it's fine for me. But for a few reasons (which I wont repeat again), I find PostgreSQL more impressive. Others may prefer MySQL and that's fine. If a preference is based only on the advantages of being familiar with one system, then it's not a valid argument for that system being better, but it's a valid reason for someone to use one of the other. This whole discussion has been shockingly civil for/., actually.
For full on survive the Apocalypse functionality, there's Oracle. For everthing else, there's PostgreSQL. The only other downside I see (and it's probably my ignorance rather than a lack of availability) is that I don't know of any large companies that offer good PostgreSQL, whereas Oracle are, well... Oracle.
Slashdot Mirror
A bit like monospace, then?
I think it's a pretty awful one on the part of the UK government. The Google manipulation might be new, but the New Labour government has been funding and supporting *approved* versions of Islam for quite a while. Why is this a bad thing? First and foremost, it is NOT the government's job to be promoting any particular religion to anyone. Ever. It is not where I want my tax money going and even if I did want to support a particular religion, the ethical thing to do would be for me to support it directly, not have a supposedly democratic government do it.
Secondly, this is domestically counter-productive to their actual aims. A religion or culture needs to change from the inside. Quite frankly, the government's stamp of approval on a religious person does nothing to lend them credibility and a lot to undermine it. If someone is trying to persuade you that they can explain God's words to you, then the last thing that will help is our despised UK government, responsible for uncounted muslim deaths, overtly manipulating you in that direction.
Thirdly, this sort of behaviour is pretty bad internationally across the muslim world. It's bad enough when a country invades a country and plunders its oil, but it might be even worse when you can see it actively trying to change the beliefs of your children to accord with a different version of your religion that suits it better.
Bad, bad, bad.
Neither dictionary definitions nor common usage of "censorship" require that it be done in secret. I know for example that the UK government censored a paper on terrorism and can even point you at the source of this paper, but it is still on their censored list and they have arrested a UK academic who downloaded it.
Thanks for the game. You're playing with the Immortals boxed set, now.
What's wrong with Debian. Explain yourself.
That is why international monitoring of shark sales is so critical. Should laser-possessing members of Anonymous get their hands on one, then they will finally have everything that they need.
Most of the people I know would moan a bit but accept it if an effective method of stopping them file-sharing were found. The reason for the acceptance would be that most people I know willingly admit that it is wrong to download copyrighted materials without paying, but do it anyway. They wouldn't really begrudge copyright holders from trying to stop them so long as the fines are in proportion and the methods not too destructive.
It's only really online that I find this near-religious attitude (in places like Slashdot, predominantly US population) where people are determined to make any argument and split any term (the "copyright infringement isn't theft" brigade for example) to show that they're actually doing nothing wrong and that an industry that is described in more terms of vaudevillian evil every month is to blame for all their ills.
Oddly, I find the less hypocritical "I'm doing something a bit wrong but I'm not going to get caught" majority less irritating.
Take a look at the link I posted to the organization I financially support. You will see that one of our activities is opposing copyright term extension in Europe, briefing MEPs and the media on the subject. What have you done to fight "people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology" ?
As to "bloated copyright industries" why do you omit the many small labels and artists and writers and game producers and others who also depend on copyright to be able to sell their work for whatever price they can find accords with public desire for their work? The Internet has provided the first opportunity in a long time to subvert giant music labels by letter artists connect to their public directly and en masse. And you want to take that opportunity away from them?
P.s. So stop being so obnoxiously self-righteous saying the problem is "people like me". And stop shifting the scope. Did I say anything about extending copyright terms? No I didn't. You introduced that particular straw man.
I am one of the original founding members of the Open Rights Group in the UK and I've several times debated with my elected representatives about protecting various freedoms on the Internet. I don't have "battered wife syndrome" and I do take active steps to try and protect my freedoms. I don't know anything about you, but there's a good chance I've done more than you have to try and keep the Internet free. But that doesn't mean I need to disregard facts that seem inconvenient. Wide-spread piracy provides a powerful justification for attempts to stop it. And I don't know of any methods of stopping it that don't have the rights of innocent people stepped on as collateral damage, or that don't allow an opening for the government to insert a little scope-creep for political purposes. So in addition to fighting against infringements of my freedom, I (like the earlier poster) point out the flaws in the arguments of piracy proponents who are provoking a lot of these measures for the sake of not paying for music or movies or books.
He's not alone. For everyone who posts something, there are usually a lot who don't but think the same. I am very much against some of the measures that are being proposed for combating piracy, but I recognize that people's behaviour in such widespread copyright infringement has provoked such measures and given a certain amount of legitimacy to them. The GP is right - this isn't sustainable and if it progresses, it's just going to wreck aspects of the Internet for all of us and, sadly, damage the ability of artists to sell their material without having to depend on a big label to manage it for them.
Call them on it. Put your letter and their reply side by side on a website. Show the complete disconnect. Laugh at them. True, you wont get the entire population of the country looking at that site, but if you posted a link in a few places where it's on topic (here and now as example), then you could have a fair bit of attention. And perhaps enough to force a better reply from them.
If the producers of a televison show want to create particular impression of a group of people, they'll pick the people they think will create that impression. There really is no patch for biased media, except replacing it with non-biased media. The best you can do is make such a name for yourself that they have to use you to represent a particular view, and can't select someone else without it being an obvious dodging of debate.
That's strange. When I try:
h4rm0ny@mybox~$ grep -r pussy *
I get lots and lots of results.
I saw a crashed ATM in the UK some years ago that appeared to be running either NT or Windows 2000. Something from around that era, anyway. It was pretty disturbing to see a floating "illegal operation" dialog box on a screen I had previously assumed was some simple and secure dedicated system.
I know you're being funny, but apparently there's actually a significant number: Link.
Apparently Alfred Kinsey's pioneering research into sexual behaviour turned up about 1.5% of the male population as having no significant desire to have sex whilst otherwise healthy (they even enjoy masturbation - it just isn't focused on anyone). According to the article, it's become acceptable to admit to straight or gay orientation but not having an orientation at all is still a source of great embarrassment and suspicion.
That's plenty of people (even males) who are quite naturally not interested in fighting over partners.
Oh not this crap again. If I see some people take a few steps toward a cliff, I say "hey - that's dangerous where you're heading." I don't expect someone to leap out and try to stop me speaking shouting 'just because they've walked some way in a bad direction doesn't mean they'll keep on walking that way.' Well no, it's not conclusive proof, but when you have definite forces pushing for something and you see concessions starting to be made, then it's legitimate to speak out against them. And what makes the difference between whether those people walk off the cliff or not might just be those people warning at the start that they are starting to take steps in a dangerous direction.
Pointing out that we're on a slippery slope is a warning, not normally a prophecy. It says continue in this direction and it's going to come to a bad end. And the second point about the slope is that it's slippery. Once steps are taken, it can be hard to take them back - for example making an organisation un-ban words again.
Or get rid of the men and just have all women. It were the men who were fighting, after all.
Male point of view, much? Maybe they could send men who are less interested in sex instead? Or maybe, when faced with men fighting over the woman in the original experiment, they could have just taken a more sensible option and just select all women.
You're not alone. Many of us have such traumatic experiences. We should form a support group. But the concern isn't what's been, it's what is. I knew someone doing their teacher training in the UK two years ago. As part of their mandatory IT qualification, they had to learn to create and use Access databases. The only thing worse than the fact they were teaching Access, was how they taught it. Nothing at all about database theory - just drag this box here, create a form there. And even that they did by hurried rote without explanation or depth. I suspect there's a whole new generation out there waiting to be mentally scarred as we have been.
They could do that with an opt-in system.
Or maybe they were using Access, which is a few steps worse than using Excel as a database.
Per-incident support. How I would like per-incident support in other areas! Although perhaps on second thoughts, if this became the general model it would encourage people to submit buggy code to O/S projects, so perhaps it wouldn't be great.
It's not that much of a flame war. At the time of posting, most of the comments I see in favour of PostgreSQL are saying that MySQL is fine but for one reason or another they prefer PostgreSQL. And that's actually my position too. I enjoy designing databases and that is true on any system. I've done some of my best work on MySQL - it's fine for me. But for a few reasons (which I wont repeat again), I find PostgreSQL more impressive. Others may prefer MySQL and that's fine. If a preference is based only on the advantages of being familiar with one system, then it's not a valid argument for that system being better, but it's a valid reason for someone to use one of the other. This whole discussion has been shockingly civil for
For full on survive the Apocalypse functionality, there's Oracle. For everthing else, there's PostgreSQL. The only other downside I see (and it's probably my ignorance rather than a lack of availability) is that I don't know of any large companies that offer good PostgreSQL, whereas Oracle are, well... Oracle.
I stand ready to be corrected, though.