One benefit to the wars we've been fighting, is the advancement of trauma-related medical technology. So many soldiers are surviving injuries that would have killed them in previous generations, leaving them with missing limbs instead. This in turn is advancing prosthetic technology quite a bit.
I expect that we'll see some really great prosthetics on the market over the next couple decades that will put existing ones to shame. Whatever prosthetic this family member gets in the immediate future, she'll probably be able to upgrade to something that improves her quality of life dramatically fairly soon regardless.
I could not agree more. Colonization of space should be our highest priority as a species. I think people are focusing too much on the reality TV thing. This isn't American Idol or whatever, nor are they sending all 78,000 people.
Somewhere in that 78,000 (and rising) will be enough applicants who will be quite capable of carrying out the mission. They'll have the right temperament, intelligence, and ability to complete the extensive training that they'll be given and carry out the mission. All they're doing right now are looking for volunteers. This is just the first phase. Thousands apply to be astronauts at NASA every year, too. I'm sure plenty of them are not very qualified, and those are the ones who wash out.
As for using reality TV to fund it, I don't see why that matters. All they're doing is making a documentary of the process and the mission, and then selling that to an interested audience. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm rather interested. If they want to slap some corporate logos on the side of the rocket too, they should feel free. Whatever works to fund the thing, who cares?
At a time when governments around the world seem more interested in robots and low Earth orbit than in actual human exploration of our universe, we should be thrilled with the prospect of a one-way trip to Mars. While I won't be volunteering, I salute anyone who's willing to make the trip.
Is $6 billion enough money? I don't really know. I don't think any of the naysayers know either. There may very well be cost overruns, once they've done more work. That's usually how things go. $6 billion is likely just what their goal is. What I do know is that they don't have the same kind of requirements as a NASA mission, let's say. It costs a heck of a lot more to return from Mars than it does to simply land and survive on it. Mars has gravity and an atmosphere, which means the lander would have to be significantly larger than a one-way lander. Then there's the matter of returning to Earth from Mars, not a very cheap prospect. All that means a smaller, cheaper rocket to get to Mars to begin with.
There's also very little new science and engineering that needs to be done, for a mission like this. Landing a manned craft on Mars will be the hardest part, due to the atmosphere and gravity. We already know how to get to Mars with a crew and create a self-sustaining environment there, we've just never bothered to spend the money to do it yet. We just have to build all the parts and put them together, then select and train a few individuals to do the mission. Nearly all of the problems have already been solved, and will not require huge amounts of expensive research. This project is standing on the shoulders of giants.
Yes, these people are signing up to die on Mars. So? That's kind of the point, to see how long they can survive. It doesn't really matter how long they last, it will have been worth it to them to have just made it farther out into the solar system than any human ever has before. I can understand why some people would not choose to volunteer for this, but don't assume that just because YOU don't see the point, that there's not plenty who do. Some may want to be famous, to get their names in the history books. Some may want to see what they're made of, to prove something to themselves. Some may want to be there for scientific reasons, to conduct experiments on Mars, or study the geology, to write papers to email back to Earth for publishing in journals. Some may just want to see with their own eyes another world, and have a story to tell. I think all of those reasons are perfectly valid, and if they're willing to risk their lives, to choose what planet they want to die on, I don't think any of us have a right to say they shouldn't do it. We should celebrate these people. They are cut from the same cloth as so many other past explorers. You think Christopher Columbus wasn't told he'd die at sea? Humans have always been risk-takers, always wanting to see what's over the next hill, or across the
The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world, and a major international sporting event (one of the big six World Marathon Majors). I'm sure news organizations in your country were covering the marathon anyway, even if just in their sports coverage. The fact that bombs started going off at it should certainly make the news all over.
Police are saying they have no suspects in custody, and that police are at hospitals to get witness statements as part of standard investigative procedure.
There was also a report that the bombs may have been detonated remotely with cell phones, or with timers, in which case there would be no hospitalized terrorists.
It's usually a good idea to take everything with a grain of salt when events like this happen.
It would be awfully coincidental. It's Patriot's Day in MA (and ME) and it happened right where lots of people are and lots of cameras (terrorists love bodies and media attention).
Any other day, anywhere else, sure, maybe it's just a gas line.
By the way, Boston Police just released some info. 2 confirmed dead, 22 wounded.
Yeah, I just figure that by the time I get to that point, they'll have nanotech or something that can just go in there and build new superteeth in a couple hours.
Everyone in my class learned Logo in 3rd grade. In middle school they taught everyone HTML. In high school we were using Scheme in several math classes.
I also learned C++ and Java in high school, though admittedly that was not everyone, and it was AP level classwork.
I think the earlier you teach kids computer languages, the better, and the quicker they'll pick it up. I don't think OOP is something terribly scary. After all, objects is kind of what people have to deal with every day in the real world. You explain it as nouns and verbs, and it's not that hard to understand.
I think Apple doesn't care what a few nerds on Slashdot think. They're making plenty of money irrespective of their lawsuits. The lawsuits haven't hurt them, clearly.
But sure, in 5-10 years, they'd better look out! Some anonymous coward isn't going to buy their products!
Last time I accidentally started lucid dreaming, I changed the angle of view and aspect ratio of my vision, which was really strange and really kind of cool at the same time. I've been interested in doing more lucid dreaming, but don't really care quite enough to train myself for it. I just enjoy it when it happens.
There's a large base, but that base doesn't buy apps. They're safely ignored and you lose on a tiny fraction of your purchases. This is what developers have learned, and the smart ones tend to ignore products that aren't at least running the last iOS. Besides, developers want to use the latest APIs that won't run on older products.
It makes sense, the people who upgrade their iPhone or iPad every year or two are clearly willing to part with their money more often, and those customers on the most recent hardware are always found to be the ones using the most apps, free and paid.
Now, if it costs you nothing to support old products, then you might as well. But as soon as you can see a use for a new API, or if you have substantial bitmap assets you'd have to redo, there's no reason to feel you have to support that old product base, no matter how large it may be.
I have an ad-blocker, but I assume the page has ads on it and the submitter is just looking for some hits. Nobody should RTFA, just read this post.
He has four products on there that are not currently being sold. One is entirely made up, with made up specs, in a product category that doesn't exist.
Of the remaining six, there's not much fragmentation at all. There are four screen resolutions, which is the only thing developers (for which the term fragmentation typically applies) need to worry about. This includes the 3.5" iPhone/iPod retina display resolution, the new 4" iPhone/iPod retina display resolution, the iPad retina display resolution, and the older non-retina iPad display resolution, which is automatically converted. The submitter made several factual errors with the resolutions, but that's the gist of it. Clearly going forward, there will be just two resolutions that developers need to worry about. One for the iPhone/iPod, and one for the iPad, as the older resolutions are being phased out and don't exist in any new products. This means the platform is no more fragmented than it was when the iPad was first introduced.
There are no dramatic API differences between the various iOS platforms, just the usual and obvious differences in available hardware. iPods and iPads don't have cell network assisted GPS if they don't have chips in them to access cell networks. iPods and iPads don't have Facetime over cell networks when they don't have chips in them to access cell networks. Advanced features of the camera system or microphones are not possible on devices lacking the necessary computing power to handle them.
All in all, nothing in this random submitter's blog post addresses true fragmentation, the sort you see in the Android platform due to API differences and hundreds of different screen resolutions.
I'll cede that child pornographers may distribute child abuse imagery in order to help them make contacts with other child pornography enthusiasts, but I still think it's more likely they are distributing in the hopes that somebody else will distribute new imagery back in exchange. Also, your argument ignores the very likely scenario in which a child pornographer is making the imagery for his or her own personal use, or to help in grooming new victims.
- Fictional accounts, fictional depictions, and anything created without hurting another human being should never be illegal, period. I agree with you 100%. Anything else creates thoughtcrime. - If you want to add extra penalties to creation and distribution of child pornography, or any child abuse imagery, I would argue that it's penalizing the wrong thing, but that's sort of a gray area. I can see where distribution could potentially cause further emotional harm to the victim. On the other hand, I can see where distribution clearly leads to the end of ongoing abuse when law enforcement or good samaritans come across that distributed content, and where creation helps in the prosecution of a case against the perpetrator. Also, criminal law should not be taken into account emotional issues, merely physical ones. Emotional harm ("pain and suffering") is best dealt with in civil law. I know there are former child pornography victims who have sued over the distribution of the child pornography they were stars in. That money can be put towards counseling, and so on, to best address their emotional harm. If we're going to increase criminal penalties, I would much rather that be for the actual physical abuse, because that penalizes the physical harm. - I agree that there is a disconnect between age of consent and child pornography laws. In my state I can have fully consensual sex with a 17 year old under the law. If the two of us were to film each other having sex, that would probably put me in prison for more years than if I had raped a 7 year old, and the 17 year old would also be just as guilty as I was. Clearly, this doesn't make a lot of sense. If something is legal to do, it should not be illegal to have depictions of it, under any circumstance. - It is very hard to establish a law that involves the subjective nature of "sexual pose" and not have injustice occur somewhere along the line. I think it's better to instead use the intent of the person creating the imagery. I think it should be pretty easy to prove intent in court for this sort of thing, and if there's reasonable doubt, there's reasonable doubt. If somebody is operating a studio in their basement, where they take nude pictures of children and advertise and distribute them as sexual images of children, well that's a lot different than your mother taking a picture of you having bath time to add to your baby book.
Ultimately, the law should do everything possible to ensure innocent people are not penalized under that law. As the law stands, it is entirely too easy to penalize people, and quite severely at that, for actions that harm no one. I also argue that the law in fact makes it easier for criminals to get away with the harm that they do. Think about how much time, money, and energy in law enforcement is being wasted on victimless "crimes" like teen sexting, because of laws that actually hurt victims by keeping evidence of victimization so incredibly radioactive. All too many people don't report child pornography that they find because to do so is admitting they looked at child pornography, or had possession of it. If an overzealous cop or district attorney running for higher office gets you in their sights, you are absolutely screwed, when all you wanted to do was save a child from horrible abuse.
Some of the items in the chart aren't even currently being sold. Some of the items are imagined future products that don't exist and haven't been announced yet.
Is slashdot just linking to people's random ass blogs now? This has got to be the most pointless and uninformed article I've ever seen here. Or it's a troll.
That's absolutely right. More than a few survivors of child abuse (of all sorts) find some peace in describing what happened to them through stories, poetry, paintings, you name it. Are they to be made criminals?
I'm pretty sure nobody abuses children because they think they can be famous online or they think they'll make a buck (especially the latter... I have never heard of anyone actually getting rich off of child pornographyâ"you'd think they'd make a big deal when they caught the person). They abuse children because they fucking like it. I'm pretty sure, if there was no means in existence to record, in any medium, the abuse of children, they'd still be abusing children. Again, they like doing it, and it provides for them pleasures above and beyond any possible motives for producing or releasing visual, audio, or written accounts of it.
We already have laws against child abuse, in all its many abhorrent forms. We even outlaw consensual acts that don't fit into the moral codes of behavior of those making the laws. Statutory rape is the obvious example, but there are laws against many other things that are less talked about, and even things that are more broadly accepted like anal or oral sex, prostitution, adultery, certain fetishes, and so on. Then there's unwise behaviors but nonetheless entirely consensual ones such as nude self-photography that is illegal if somebody is underage, even if they are legally able to engage in sexual acts with whomever they choose. Now some of these are still on the books from a more conservative time and rather difficult to enforce, but others are newer, or more widely supported to this day, and these crimes are gone after with a lot of zeal.
Okay... point is, we have laws already that cover the acts depicted in child pornography, whether it is pictures, drawings, video, or written accounts. Are those laws not effective? Then make them stronger. But we've pretty much done the opposite. Possession of child pornography, in many cases, carries more severe penalties than actually raping a child! Which do we think causes more actual harm, the assault, or the images or descriptions of the assault the child may not even know are out there?
Then there's the fact that these images or depictions are evidence of a crime. Possession of evidence of a crime shouldn't be criminalized, because it makes convicting the perpetrator harder. As horrifying as child abuse is, let's think this through. Is it easier or harder to convict a child abuser if they record the abuse that they've done? Is it harder or easier to determine a crime has occurred, and find out who did it, if the record is distributed?
I have no interest in watching people get murdered, but if somebody gets murdered, I'd rather there be a record of it. Society apparently agrees, or at least is more tolerant, because I can, if I choose, find all the video, pictures, or written accounts of people being murdered as I like, and it's all legal to possess or view. I have no interest in watching children get abused, but if a child is being abused, I'd much rather it was documented, and distributed widely, so that the person who did it is more easily found and convicted. Society disagrees, which is pretty screwed up. I don't know why this is controversial, but apparently if you say that murder is worse than child abuse, people get upset and say you sympathize with child abusers. I say they're both pretty bad, but I say if the criminal is stupid enough to record him or herself doing a crime, we should absolutely encourage them gathering and distributing evidence against themselves. Since child abuse so often happens behind closed doors in the privacy of people's homes with very little physical evidence after the fact, a lot of crimes that happen we might never know about if such evidence wasn't being self-collected by perpetrators or witnesses.
And, last but not least, I don't buy into the "it encourages criminal acts" argument. Please. I have killed more people in video games, or written about violent acts as a fiction writer, than I'll ever meet in real life, and I've yet to kill a single actual person in all my years. I've read news stories about real violent acts, and I've never even been in a fist fight. I've certa
The problem with all the people complaining here is they don't really get that last point. They think that everything they've read on internet blogs is exactly what the jury heard. It wasn't. Samsung made a pretty terrible case and it's their own fault.
It was as single player game. They divided the world up so much that you never ran into anybody, even on the high population servers, unless you were at the main space station near a mailbox or trainer.
The trick, I think, is to show a few really good episodes from all the series, that shows what Trek is all about, while avoiding some of the camp and nonsense.
Hardly a complete list, but a few good ones that should leave the right sort of impression. People don't get into Star Trek because they don't get Star Trek. These episodes are a crash course on what it's all about: TOS: Space Seed, The City on the Edge of Forever, Mirror Mirror, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Tholian Web TNG: The Measure Of A Man, The Most Toys, The Drumhead, Darmok, The Inner Light DS9: In the Hands of the Prophets, The House of Quark, Little Green Men, The Ascent, In the Pale Moonlight VOY: Caretaker, Timeless, Thirty Days, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, Good Shepherd ENT: Strange New World, The Andorian Incident, Dear Doctor, Cogenitor, In a Mirror Darkly
Pick a few of your own favorites from the above, and anyone worth knowing will probably want to watch all the rest without much more pressure from you. If they can't find something to like in the above, they're hopeless.
I suggest TNG first, then DS9. If you want, overlap TNG and DS9 as the original air dates did, but it's not really necessary. Be sure to watch with them, wherever possible, to coach them through the early seasons of both. After those two series, offer up either VOY, ENT, or TOS. All three can be taken entirely on their own, really in any order. VOY's quality is inconsistent, ENT gets bogged down in the Temporal Cold War and Xindi stuff, and TOS is rather dated/different. A true Star Trek exposure requires all five series, but get them hooked on TNG and DS9 first, and tempt them with selected episodes of the others so they're willing to stick it out through the ups and downs.
As for the movies, skip The Final Frontier, Nemesis, and Star Trek (2009). Those should only be watched with supervision, and after extensive indoctrination in True Star Trek. Roddenberry disowned The Final Frontier, and Nemesis and Star Trek (2009) were both created by non-Trek people. The other movies can be enjoyed really at any time, though it helps to have at least some familiarity with TOS and TNG beforehand.
Slashdot Mirror
One benefit to the wars we've been fighting, is the advancement of trauma-related medical technology. So many soldiers are surviving injuries that would have killed them in previous generations, leaving them with missing limbs instead. This in turn is advancing prosthetic technology quite a bit.
I expect that we'll see some really great prosthetics on the market over the next couple decades that will put existing ones to shame. Whatever prosthetic this family member gets in the immediate future, she'll probably be able to upgrade to something that improves her quality of life dramatically fairly soon regardless.
I could not agree more. Colonization of space should be our highest priority as a species. I think people are focusing too much on the reality TV thing. This isn't American Idol or whatever, nor are they sending all 78,000 people.
Somewhere in that 78,000 (and rising) will be enough applicants who will be quite capable of carrying out the mission. They'll have the right temperament, intelligence, and ability to complete the extensive training that they'll be given and carry out the mission. All they're doing right now are looking for volunteers. This is just the first phase. Thousands apply to be astronauts at NASA every year, too. I'm sure plenty of them are not very qualified, and those are the ones who wash out.
As for using reality TV to fund it, I don't see why that matters. All they're doing is making a documentary of the process and the mission, and then selling that to an interested audience. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm rather interested. If they want to slap some corporate logos on the side of the rocket too, they should feel free. Whatever works to fund the thing, who cares?
At a time when governments around the world seem more interested in robots and low Earth orbit than in actual human exploration of our universe, we should be thrilled with the prospect of a one-way trip to Mars. While I won't be volunteering, I salute anyone who's willing to make the trip.
Is $6 billion enough money? I don't really know. I don't think any of the naysayers know either. There may very well be cost overruns, once they've done more work. That's usually how things go. $6 billion is likely just what their goal is. What I do know is that they don't have the same kind of requirements as a NASA mission, let's say. It costs a heck of a lot more to return from Mars than it does to simply land and survive on it. Mars has gravity and an atmosphere, which means the lander would have to be significantly larger than a one-way lander. Then there's the matter of returning to Earth from Mars, not a very cheap prospect. All that means a smaller, cheaper rocket to get to Mars to begin with.
There's also very little new science and engineering that needs to be done, for a mission like this. Landing a manned craft on Mars will be the hardest part, due to the atmosphere and gravity. We already know how to get to Mars with a crew and create a self-sustaining environment there, we've just never bothered to spend the money to do it yet. We just have to build all the parts and put them together, then select and train a few individuals to do the mission. Nearly all of the problems have already been solved, and will not require huge amounts of expensive research. This project is standing on the shoulders of giants.
Yes, these people are signing up to die on Mars. So? That's kind of the point, to see how long they can survive. It doesn't really matter how long they last, it will have been worth it to them to have just made it farther out into the solar system than any human ever has before. I can understand why some people would not choose to volunteer for this, but don't assume that just because YOU don't see the point, that there's not plenty who do. Some may want to be famous, to get their names in the history books. Some may want to see what they're made of, to prove something to themselves. Some may want to be there for scientific reasons, to conduct experiments on Mars, or study the geology, to write papers to email back to Earth for publishing in journals. Some may just want to see with their own eyes another world, and have a story to tell. I think all of those reasons are perfectly valid, and if they're willing to risk their lives, to choose what planet they want to die on, I don't think any of us have a right to say they shouldn't do it. We should celebrate these people. They are cut from the same cloth as so many other past explorers. You think Christopher Columbus wasn't told he'd die at sea? Humans have always been risk-takers, always wanting to see what's over the next hill, or across the
The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world, and a major international sporting event (one of the big six World Marathon Majors). I'm sure news organizations in your country were covering the marathon anyway, even if just in their sports coverage. The fact that bombs started going off at it should certainly make the news all over.
Police are saying they have no suspects in custody, and that police are at hospitals to get witness statements as part of standard investigative procedure.
There was also a report that the bombs may have been detonated remotely with cell phones, or with timers, in which case there would be no hospitalized terrorists.
It's usually a good idea to take everything with a grain of salt when events like this happen.
It would be awfully coincidental. It's Patriot's Day in MA (and ME) and it happened right where lots of people are and lots of cameras (terrorists love bodies and media attention).
Any other day, anywhere else, sure, maybe it's just a gas line.
By the way, Boston Police just released some info. 2 confirmed dead, 22 wounded.
Yeah, I just figure that by the time I get to that point, they'll have nanotech or something that can just go in there and build new superteeth in a couple hours.
Everyone in my class learned Logo in 3rd grade. In middle school they taught everyone HTML. In high school we were using Scheme in several math classes.
I also learned C++ and Java in high school, though admittedly that was not everyone, and it was AP level classwork.
I think the earlier you teach kids computer languages, the better, and the quicker they'll pick it up. I don't think OOP is something terribly scary. After all, objects is kind of what people have to deal with every day in the real world. You explain it as nouns and verbs, and it's not that hard to understand.
I think Apple doesn't care what a few nerds on Slashdot think. They're making plenty of money irrespective of their lawsuits. The lawsuits haven't hurt them, clearly.
But sure, in 5-10 years, they'd better look out! Some anonymous coward isn't going to buy their products!
You made a mistake including Hawaii. I would have signed it, otherwise.
Last time I accidentally started lucid dreaming, I changed the angle of view and aspect ratio of my vision, which was really strange and really kind of cool at the same time. I've been interested in doing more lucid dreaming, but don't really care quite enough to train myself for it. I just enjoy it when it happens.
There's a large base, but that base doesn't buy apps. They're safely ignored and you lose on a tiny fraction of your purchases. This is what developers have learned, and the smart ones tend to ignore products that aren't at least running the last iOS. Besides, developers want to use the latest APIs that won't run on older products.
It makes sense, the people who upgrade their iPhone or iPad every year or two are clearly willing to part with their money more often, and those customers on the most recent hardware are always found to be the ones using the most apps, free and paid.
Now, if it costs you nothing to support old products, then you might as well. But as soon as you can see a use for a new API, or if you have substantial bitmap assets you'd have to redo, there's no reason to feel you have to support that old product base, no matter how large it may be.
I have an ad-blocker, but I assume the page has ads on it and the submitter is just looking for some hits. Nobody should RTFA, just read this post.
He has four products on there that are not currently being sold. One is entirely made up, with made up specs, in a product category that doesn't exist.
Of the remaining six, there's not much fragmentation at all. There are four screen resolutions, which is the only thing developers (for which the term fragmentation typically applies) need to worry about. This includes the 3.5" iPhone/iPod retina display resolution, the new 4" iPhone/iPod retina display resolution, the iPad retina display resolution, and the older non-retina iPad display resolution, which is automatically converted. The submitter made several factual errors with the resolutions, but that's the gist of it. Clearly going forward, there will be just two resolutions that developers need to worry about. One for the iPhone/iPod, and one for the iPad, as the older resolutions are being phased out and don't exist in any new products. This means the platform is no more fragmented than it was when the iPad was first introduced.
There are no dramatic API differences between the various iOS platforms, just the usual and obvious differences in available hardware. iPods and iPads don't have cell network assisted GPS if they don't have chips in them to access cell networks. iPods and iPads don't have Facetime over cell networks when they don't have chips in them to access cell networks. Advanced features of the camera system or microphones are not possible on devices lacking the necessary computing power to handle them.
All in all, nothing in this random submitter's blog post addresses true fragmentation, the sort you see in the Android platform due to API differences and hundreds of different screen resolutions.
I'll cede that child pornographers may distribute child abuse imagery in order to help them make contacts with other child pornography enthusiasts, but I still think it's more likely they are distributing in the hopes that somebody else will distribute new imagery back in exchange. Also, your argument ignores the very likely scenario in which a child pornographer is making the imagery for his or her own personal use, or to help in grooming new victims.
- Fictional accounts, fictional depictions, and anything created without hurting another human being should never be illegal, period. I agree with you 100%. Anything else creates thoughtcrime.
- If you want to add extra penalties to creation and distribution of child pornography, or any child abuse imagery, I would argue that it's penalizing the wrong thing, but that's sort of a gray area. I can see where distribution could potentially cause further emotional harm to the victim. On the other hand, I can see where distribution clearly leads to the end of ongoing abuse when law enforcement or good samaritans come across that distributed content, and where creation helps in the prosecution of a case against the perpetrator. Also, criminal law should not be taken into account emotional issues, merely physical ones. Emotional harm ("pain and suffering") is best dealt with in civil law. I know there are former child pornography victims who have sued over the distribution of the child pornography they were stars in. That money can be put towards counseling, and so on, to best address their emotional harm. If we're going to increase criminal penalties, I would much rather that be for the actual physical abuse, because that penalizes the physical harm.
- I agree that there is a disconnect between age of consent and child pornography laws. In my state I can have fully consensual sex with a 17 year old under the law. If the two of us were to film each other having sex, that would probably put me in prison for more years than if I had raped a 7 year old, and the 17 year old would also be just as guilty as I was. Clearly, this doesn't make a lot of sense. If something is legal to do, it should not be illegal to have depictions of it, under any circumstance.
- It is very hard to establish a law that involves the subjective nature of "sexual pose" and not have injustice occur somewhere along the line. I think it's better to instead use the intent of the person creating the imagery. I think it should be pretty easy to prove intent in court for this sort of thing, and if there's reasonable doubt, there's reasonable doubt. If somebody is operating a studio in their basement, where they take nude pictures of children and advertise and distribute them as sexual images of children, well that's a lot different than your mother taking a picture of you having bath time to add to your baby book.
Ultimately, the law should do everything possible to ensure innocent people are not penalized under that law. As the law stands, it is entirely too easy to penalize people, and quite severely at that, for actions that harm no one. I also argue that the law in fact makes it easier for criminals to get away with the harm that they do. Think about how much time, money, and energy in law enforcement is being wasted on victimless "crimes" like teen sexting, because of laws that actually hurt victims by keeping evidence of victimization so incredibly radioactive. All too many people don't report child pornography that they find because to do so is admitting they looked at child pornography, or had possession of it. If an overzealous cop or district attorney running for higher office gets you in their sights, you are absolutely screwed, when all you wanted to do was save a child from horrible abuse.
Some of the items in the chart aren't even currently being sold. Some of the items are imagined future products that don't exist and haven't been announced yet.
Is slashdot just linking to people's random ass blogs now? This has got to be the most pointless and uninformed article I've ever seen here. Or it's a troll.
That's absolutely right. More than a few survivors of child abuse (of all sorts) find some peace in describing what happened to them through stories, poetry, paintings, you name it. Are they to be made criminals?
I'm pretty sure nobody abuses children because they think they can be famous online or they think they'll make a buck (especially the latter... I have never heard of anyone actually getting rich off of child pornographyâ"you'd think they'd make a big deal when they caught the person). They abuse children because they fucking like it. I'm pretty sure, if there was no means in existence to record, in any medium, the abuse of children, they'd still be abusing children. Again, they like doing it, and it provides for them pleasures above and beyond any possible motives for producing or releasing visual, audio, or written accounts of it.
We already have laws against child abuse, in all its many abhorrent forms. We even outlaw consensual acts that don't fit into the moral codes of behavior of those making the laws. Statutory rape is the obvious example, but there are laws against many other things that are less talked about, and even things that are more broadly accepted like anal or oral sex, prostitution, adultery, certain fetishes, and so on. Then there's unwise behaviors but nonetheless entirely consensual ones such as nude self-photography that is illegal if somebody is underage, even if they are legally able to engage in sexual acts with whomever they choose. Now some of these are still on the books from a more conservative time and rather difficult to enforce, but others are newer, or more widely supported to this day, and these crimes are gone after with a lot of zeal.
Okay... point is, we have laws already that cover the acts depicted in child pornography, whether it is pictures, drawings, video, or written accounts. Are those laws not effective? Then make them stronger. But we've pretty much done the opposite. Possession of child pornography, in many cases, carries more severe penalties than actually raping a child! Which do we think causes more actual harm, the assault, or the images or descriptions of the assault the child may not even know are out there?
Then there's the fact that these images or depictions are evidence of a crime. Possession of evidence of a crime shouldn't be criminalized, because it makes convicting the perpetrator harder. As horrifying as child abuse is, let's think this through. Is it easier or harder to convict a child abuser if they record the abuse that they've done? Is it harder or easier to determine a crime has occurred, and find out who did it, if the record is distributed?
I have no interest in watching people get murdered, but if somebody gets murdered, I'd rather there be a record of it. Society apparently agrees, or at least is more tolerant, because I can, if I choose, find all the video, pictures, or written accounts of people being murdered as I like, and it's all legal to possess or view. I have no interest in watching children get abused, but if a child is being abused, I'd much rather it was documented, and distributed widely, so that the person who did it is more easily found and convicted. Society disagrees, which is pretty screwed up. I don't know why this is controversial, but apparently if you say that murder is worse than child abuse, people get upset and say you sympathize with child abusers. I say they're both pretty bad, but I say if the criminal is stupid enough to record him or herself doing a crime, we should absolutely encourage them gathering and distributing evidence against themselves. Since child abuse so often happens behind closed doors in the privacy of people's homes with very little physical evidence after the fact, a lot of crimes that happen we might never know about if such evidence wasn't being self-collected by perpetrators or witnesses.
And, last but not least, I don't buy into the "it encourages criminal acts" argument. Please. I have killed more people in video games, or written about violent acts as a fiction writer, than I'll ever meet in real life, and I've yet to kill a single actual person in all my years. I've read news stories about real violent acts, and I've never even been in a fist fight. I've certa
The problem with all the people complaining here is they don't really get that last point. They think that everything they've read on internet blogs is exactly what the jury heard. It wasn't. Samsung made a pretty terrible case and it's their own fault.
Is it clear? Were you there in the room watching them?
I make it a point not to question the secret deliberations of any jury. I especially make it a point not to listen to any hearsay after the fact.
What's done is done. If you disagree with the verdict, disagree with the law, not the jury.
Yup. Very clunky, I noticed that in beta, and it never changed in the release game. PvP was just annoying.
Also when are people going to understand that macros and interface add-ons are rather important?
It was as single player game. They divided the world up so much that you never ran into anybody, even on the high population servers, unless you were at the main space station near a mailbox or trainer.
Couldn't agree more. Wish I had mod points.
I think you have no idea where we have some of our military bases, if you think all our bases are a result of war.
The trick, I think, is to show a few really good episodes from all the series, that shows what Trek is all about, while avoiding some of the camp and nonsense.
Hardly a complete list, but a few good ones that should leave the right sort of impression. People don't get into Star Trek because they don't get Star Trek. These episodes are a crash course on what it's all about:
TOS: Space Seed, The City on the Edge of Forever, Mirror Mirror, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Tholian Web
TNG: The Measure Of A Man, The Most Toys, The Drumhead, Darmok, The Inner Light
DS9: In the Hands of the Prophets, The House of Quark, Little Green Men, The Ascent, In the Pale Moonlight
VOY: Caretaker, Timeless, Thirty Days, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, Good Shepherd
ENT: Strange New World, The Andorian Incident, Dear Doctor, Cogenitor, In a Mirror Darkly
Pick a few of your own favorites from the above, and anyone worth knowing will probably want to watch all the rest without much more pressure from you. If they can't find something to like in the above, they're hopeless.
I suggest TNG first, then DS9. If you want, overlap TNG and DS9 as the original air dates did, but it's not really necessary. Be sure to watch with them, wherever possible, to coach them through the early seasons of both. After those two series, offer up either VOY, ENT, or TOS. All three can be taken entirely on their own, really in any order. VOY's quality is inconsistent, ENT gets bogged down in the Temporal Cold War and Xindi stuff, and TOS is rather dated/different. A true Star Trek exposure requires all five series, but get them hooked on TNG and DS9 first, and tempt them with selected episodes of the others so they're willing to stick it out through the ups and downs.
As for the movies, skip The Final Frontier, Nemesis, and Star Trek (2009). Those should only be watched with supervision, and after extensive indoctrination in True Star Trek. Roddenberry disowned The Final Frontier, and Nemesis and Star Trek (2009) were both created by non-Trek people. The other movies can be enjoyed really at any time, though it helps to have at least some familiarity with TOS and TNG beforehand.
Unidentified, maybe, but not a Flying Object.