You are confusing having rights with having them respected. They are inherent.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm pointing straight at reality for you, and you're simply not listening.
Ideas of this type have no value when there is no enforcement to back them up. You saying you have an "inherent" right because you believe it has no more effect upon reality than me telling you that there are little pink unicorns running in between your feet. What you're doing is exercising your imagination. The ideas you hold in such regard have absolutely zero value if not actually respected and enforced. They are NOT inherent. A tiger will eat you regardless of your ideas; likewise, the government will squash you like a bug regardless of your ideas. Your ideas won't help you one bit unless those in power agree with them. And they don't. Rights only have meaning when they are supported and enforced.
And the only way to make sure that your rights are not eroded is to exercise them to their fullest at every opportunity.
Really? Tell that to the 30 million Americans presently in jail; tell it to those injured by arbitrary government action. Exercising what YOU think is a right in the face of a much more powerful entity that doesn't agree won't "make sure your rights are not eroded", what it'll do is make sure that you get stomped like a bug, no doubt still squawking "but what about my rights!?!?!" The reality is, if the powers that be don't think you have any particular set of rights, then you don't have them. What you have is a worthless idea. Unless you can convince the powers that be otherwise somehow. Can you do that? I see no evidence of it, frankly.
There's a video I saw on youtube a little while back, some Christian fellow jumped into a cage with some lions. Waving his bible over his head, he approached the lions, quite secure in the idea that Jesus would protect him. I grant you up front that the level of the man's conviction was simply astounding. The lions, however, were oblivious to his beliefs, and tore him right up. People with more power -- in the form of tranquilizer guns and water hoses -- stepped in.
This is a perfect analogy for your idea of "exercising your rights in order to keep them." You walk up to the government waving your imaginary rights around -- that is, rights you are thinking are inviolate, but in fact, they are not -- and you won't "keep" those rights, you'll simply get creamed. There are no zookeepers available to save you in your role in this analogy. Just lions.
You cannot solve the problem of the lion not acknowledging Jesus with faith; you can't solve it with conviction; you can't solve it by explaining how you think things should go, or claiming you have an "inherent" right to stand there unmolested. Either you stay out of the lion's way, or you -- or someone acting in your stead -- overcome the lion with force, or you lose, all without getting to benefit from the idea you (mistakenly) held that your right trumped reality. Period. Because rights only exist as a function of power. And you, my friend, are not the lion. You are the preacher. Get it now?
Well, not really true. The inherent rights to your own life and liberty arise from the assumption that people own themselves.
No. You only "own yourself" if that idea is backed against those who would disagree, or there are no other people, so you are effectively your own judge, jury and executioner. The "assumption", as you put it, must be made of a social structure, and that structure has to be backed by power and the willingness to use it. When that isn't the case -- as when the government removed your right to warrant, probable cause, oath, affirmation, and enumeration of items searched and places to be searched within 100 miles of any US border -- you have no such right. Because rights ONLY arise as a consequence of power, and the willingness to use it. Otherwise, they're of no more substance than any other random sentence, poetic or heartfelt as such a sentence might be.
Of course, this is an assumption that we've made that has allowed democracy and freedom to flourish.
No again. The government makes no such assumption. That's why you can be thrown in a hole and waterboarded without recourse to a lawyer, etc. That's why they can assassinate you any time they feel like it; that's why they can read your bank statements, your email, your network activity in general. Because you have no rights in these areas, simply because those in power will not enforce those ideas, which makes them void in terms of protecting you -- and if rights don't protect you, they're not rights. They're just ideas. Perhaps good, perhaps not, but still, no more than thoughts.
Also, look around you. This is not a democracy. It's not even a constitutional republic any longer. We're being directly ruled, extra-constitutionally, by 454 people. Just like a banana republic. Specifically because the government no longer will enforce (as a whole, and as a individual legislators, judges and an executive) the rights that formed the basis for our allowing it to come into existence in the first place, and also because they find non-rights related issues such as article V and restrictions on ex post facto laws just too inconvenient to bother with. Without the willing co-operation of those in power, these ideas lose substance and become no more than memories and motivation (and obviously, not enough motivation, as we've let it happen.)
But we started with the assumption that we own ourselves, which makes sense because outside the context of a society, people are free to do as they please.
You mean the government was started that way. But they no longer agree, and so this idea is worth nothing. You don't own yourself; you don't own "real estate"; and you have exactly that subset of "rights" that those in power will back up for you, which is basically to say very few indeed at this point.
Now if we own ourselves we own our lives.
Yes, that's a wonderful "if." But we don't own ourselves, we don't own our lives, we can't control those who do exert control over our lives, even though they are in explicit violation of the contract the citizens made that assigns them the task of governance.
No one can take that away unless we give it to them.
Wrong. They can take complete, exclusive control of every aspect of your life. They can take your money. Your land. Your freedom. Your reputation. Your ability to work. Your ability to travel. Your children. Your very life itself. And they can do it all on a whim, and without inconvenient oversight. You imagine you "own" these things, but this is simply because they haven't come for you in particular and you're living in an environment you've "papered over" with an incorrect idea: that you're in control. You're not.
Likewise, if we own ourselves we own our actions, and by ext
I think his list was meant to be conjunctive rather than disjunctive. (I.e. he is assuming the word "and" between his four points, not "or".)
Then he's really confused, because read that way, image containing nuidty and intercourse with a 4 year old aren't CP unless "(3) some other crime" is apparent in the image.
I'm just giving him a chance to explain his actual opinion WRT his whacky list construction. Hence the question, and not an accusation.
There's a checkbox in the settings that, only when checked, which is not the default, allows you to install apps from other than Amazon. It's certainly easy to deal with, doesn't require any hacking, but I think it is fair to call the device "locked" in that sense. The checkbox is the lock.
[I photograph] A pretty girl on the eve of her 18th birthday, I'm a pedophile. The next day, I'm an artist.
And a couple of years later, when the morons in congress enact yet another ex post facto law (for the children, of course), you're a pedophile again. Welcome to reality.
4 is otherwise devoid of artistic/diagnostic merit
You didn't seriously just try to say that if images of kids are devoid of artistic merit (meaning, in someone's opinion... eye of the beholder and all that), then those images are child porn, did you?
That is utter nonsense. There are no "inherent human rights." The only way you get "rights" is (a) someone has to define them, either specifically or in general, (b) someone has to have the power to defend them, (c) and then they actually have to be defended.
As long as people confuse the real situation with this "inherent" meme, they'll fail at actually solving the problem. For instance, in the USA, (c) above is where we fail. We've defined them specifically (those mentioned in the bill of rights and a few others), we've defined them generally (the 9th amendment), the government certainly has the power to defend them... but it rarely does -- in fact, it is much more likely to be the very party abusing them. This happens specifically because rights are not inherent -- they are simply grants supported by power. When power is focused on other issues, rights often mean nothing at all, other than you're proceeding under a set of incorrect assumptions.
What I expect, actually, is to replace the battery with an ultracapacitor system, including an inductive charge transfer device, that obviates the whole battery thing completely, and moves the device into the "works until the hardware breaks" domain, and removes the need for a cable completely. Tech changes. Ultracaps are coming. This whole battery thing... flash in the pan.:)
Kindle Fires don't have the Android Market, but they can still install APKs from unknown source if you enable the option. So the computing freedom is there.
That is correct. First thing we did was unlock our Fire and then install the marketplace on it; you can install pretty much anything that works under the current OS level at that point.
However, I'm bound to point out that you can jailbreak an iPad and do the same thing... and it's trivial. As an owner of both, first, I'd say that it's a distinction without a difference. Second, as someone who hasn't found it necessary to jailbreak the iPad but has filled one with apps (I don't use it for video at all except for streaming, and I keep my music on an iPod), I'm fairly certain that my computing freedom isn't being significantly impinged upon as yet in the iOS arena.
I'm a lot more worried about the mandatory sandboxing of OS X apps as per the OS X app store rules than I am anything at all to do with iOS. The iPad, at least as long as we're talking about a tablet with 512k of ram, is essentially a very limited one-app-at-a-time machine, and the "filesystem" sucks so badly there's very little sensible file sharing among apps that can be done on it, so most apps simply don't try. My 8-core Mac is something else entirely, and Apple is beginning to have some very bad ideas about "save the children" kind of moron-features such as sandboxing. Here's hoping someone "jailbreaks" that, too. I am NOT looking forward to real computer apps having to jump through hoops -- or worse yet, being unable - to access data files. It'll be the worst of all computing worlds.
You do realize that some of us can actually spell, as well as write with proper grammar, don't you? Not to mention that some of us also write HTML for a living, or as an adjunct to our living -- WYSIWYG tools aren't the only way to create HTML, CSS, CGI, etc.
Also, with regard to spelling, many systems provide inline spell checking capability.
Actually, corporations not claiming ownership of work they're not entitled to and have not paid for is the best policy. But corporations are driven by lawyers, so you know they'll go with what they can do, as opposed to what they should do. Shakespeare's character had it right.
And in the meantime, if one has to forgo honesty in order to not be robbed, that's just as acceptable here as it is when you tell a cutpurse that you have no money, even though it is in your sock.
Remember: something being "the law" does not in ANY way equate with it being RIGHT. At this point in time, it just means "government supported", which in turn is your assurance that it has been approved by a group of whom the vast majority are criminals by definition, having violated the constitution many times with malice aforethought.
When the law allows pics of dead children with their guts all over the street to be posted on the internet without the consent of the children
And how would one get this consent? Via a medium, I presume? Dead humans are dead meat. No more, no less. No people. These dead bodies can't give consent, and the idea is ludicrous anyway -- they can't care. Because there is no "they."
I grant you that any specific interest in this is *quite* peculiar, but then again, it isn't the first time. There have been entire fads of drawing, painting, shooting, and collecting, pictures of dead humans. I refer you, regretfully, to memento mori (definition) and, even more regretfully, to the various flickr groups.
with necrophilia, bestiality, and underage sex, it is questionable whether or not one party is capable of truly giving consent
In the case of necrophilia, there is only one party, and obviously they consent if they choose to engage. The "other party" is strictly in the imagination of the beholder -- there's no one home. The problem I have with it is that what very likely is home are legions of bacteria who are presently engaged in consuming the host, and are likely just as interested in consuming the, er, visitor. If this is understood (and really, just how ignorant do you have to be to not understand this), then I conclude that choosing to engage is an indicator of self-destructive intent. And no, I don't think condoms sufficiently obviate the risk.
Animals can't consent any more than a trumpet can, but, presuming you don't hurt them, I doubt they care, either, and so what. No one seems to be concerned if the animal consents before we knock them over the head and eat them, so it really seems ludicrous to me to worry if they consent to playing North Dakota to your South Carolina given that the "don't injure them" caveat is in play.
Underage sex is a legal position; there are obviously those "underage" who are capable, competent, and eager -- and who are being abused by the law, not by the sex and/or the partner. There are just as obviously those who are forced and who are injured, and just as in any other case when people are coerced and harmed, society needs (and has, in almost infinite degree) remedies for that. Unfortunately, as long as we define "problem" as "age mismatch = shit one's self and then fall in it" we're just making it worse for the vast majority of people. Getting the politicians off this horse is nigh impossible, though. It's the low hanging fruit, and no, that wasn't a pun.
Ok, granted, the feds are complete idiots with unbelievable numbers of stupid, often obviously unconstitutional laws, and just because the feds say "no" is a terrible reason to write anything in particular off...
But regardless, actual child porn -- not of sexually active teenagers, of course, but of children -- presents a problem for the child, even if, as some would argue, the majority of the harm comes from the adults hysterically imposing said harm upon the participants. Regardless of its source, the kid is going to suffer some emotional fallout. So child porn is bad, period, in our society. Because there is harm done to the child.
One of the best examples I can think of for "bad law" are the lines in (ok, all over) the sand that the law draws about consent. I can easily find you teenagers who are quite capable of informed consent; and I can just as easily find you adults (that is, people 21 and over) who couldn't even tell you what informed consent is. You know what those age lines really are? A complete cop-out delivered by a society that is too immature to deal with the issue of sexuality in any kind of reasonable fashion -- a late stage superstitious society that squeezes its collective eyes shut in literal horror at the idea of a 16 year old having pleasurable, consenting sex, but watches eagerly when kids the same age -- and younger -- are portrayed in movies as engaged in bloody combat with injury and death both being commonplace. In other words, our lawmakers, our citizens, and the cultural mores that drive them, are nothing more, generally speaking, than a bunch of sick, ineffective failtards.
But hey... you keep rolling with "it's a federal law." Because, you know, that's a sure thing.
First of all, IQ is only relevant to a particular population. Even among humans, an IQ test issued in one region won't accurately reflect the IQ of those in another because of built-in language, cultural and technological bias issues that are integral to the testing process. Secondly, measuring the IQ of an animal with a human IQ test is going to get results that are WAY off, probably far underestimating the animal's capacity for induction and reasoning because there's an entirely different sensorium involved, but even that isn't certain. Please don't quote psychobabble without a background in it. It does no one, including the animals here, any good. It just looks uninformed and clueless -- because it is.
I know of no one who is more pro-animal than I am, or who would more like to see them achieve a level of rights in our society far, far beyond where they are now, but it still tweaks the living heck out of me to see nonsense promoted as fact.
So no, expensive plasma TVs are not common outside bars and the homes of the more affluent.
He said big, not plasma. Plasma is not the only way to go big. A projector and a bare wall and some paint will get you a bigger TV than any plasma made, and at a relatively low cost as well. A projector capable of delivering a 300" 1080p display is about $860 right now.
But the majority of TVs in the US are 4:3 CRTs
Um.... no. You're a little out of touch, there. Do you realize a 17" LCD with HDMI, etc., is about $100? And that all the old CRT TV's can no longer receive on-air broadcasts without an external converter system? I haven't even seen a CRT TV in some years now -- outside of the local landfill.
Yes, most people have TVs and even cable TV
Also changing. Cable doesn't hold a candle to streaming -- both in convenience and WRT content -- and again, everyone I know streams. Computers, Roku, AppleTV, Bluray players with built in apps, iPads, Fires, phones, etc... Satellite systems and cable connections are being let go when the contracts expire. Most dishes around here (Rural Montana, so you'd think we'd use em if we needed em) are disconnected, wires hanging at the dish. The cable company gave up last year, so it's no longer even an option.
If you want to see a 3rd world country, come to the US, and visit the 80% of it that still doesn't have cell phone coverage
Oh, come now. Again, I live in an extremely rural area. We're 300 miles from the nearest city worthy of the name. There's cell coverage all along the highways, in every town, and over a surprising amount of adjacent area, including the entire lake (Fort Peck lake, the thing is blinkin' huge.) Most of the US that doesn't have cell coverage... doesn't really *need* cell coverage. There's a distinct difference between "3rd world lack of needed infrastructure" and "no one goes out there into the boonies because there's nothing of interest." And even out there, we have ham radio repeaters, sheriff's department coverage, ranchers have radios and wired telephones... nah, sorry, that whole third world thing... that only applies to our government's current abandonment of the constitution in favor of fiat rule. Our infrastructure is outstanding, if a little frayed around the edges here and there.
or the east side towns where people live from hand to mouth
So... your thesis is, if the country allows poor people to exist, it's a 3rd-world country? I dunno about that. What about a country -- like this one -- that allows one to get out of that situation by virtue of paying attention in school, learning well, applying a quality work ethic, and not adopting fringe cultural variations such as your pants hanging below your butt, tattoos all over your face and neck, and a mangled form of English only understood by fans of rap videos? Personally, I think we're pretty advanced in that we allow such cultural choices to be made. If you want to be a fringe element, you can do that. If you want to get out, as it were, your odds are excellent if you simply observe the successful strategies that lead to your goal and emulate them.
Personally, I think the worst cultural negative we apply is school sports; young people often follow, usually at the behest of their schools, a sports-centric approach in the hopes that this will bring them the cultural status, position and wealth they would like to have, not realizing that the odds are hugely stacked against them and that following an academic path instead would serve them far better. This is something I see locally -- trying to hire young people with adequate reading and writing and even basic math skills is quite a task; on the other hand, if throwing a ball a
Well, it's simple enough: The technical elements of the story, which itself is clearly fictional, are scientifically possible, as far as we know. Longer life (immortal youths), artificial service beings created as dark-eyed virgins, custom food creation, that sort of thing. We don't have most of these things yet, but they are certainly possible in a scientific framework, just technically very difficult for us at the moment. The same applies at the time the Koran was made up; those things were more fantasy then, as science was considerably more jumbled as a process and the technologies required for these not even in view on the horizon at the time, but the bottom line is they are technically possible but fiction as written. A God -- a being with enormous abilities compared to ours -- also possible within a scientific framework, but also not in evidence in any way. Ergo, science fiction. More clearly so today than ever before.
Notice I didn't say it was *good* science fiction. That's something else entirely. But it's good enough for some.
hat's an easy insult, but how would you explain a +5 that soon?
Again, because I know how slashdot works. (a) Site luminaries have unlimited mod points and (b) there are many moderators at any one moment, and (c) when a story has few posts, the mods are all looking at the same few posts. The end results is that you can go to +5 from -1 in about 1 second. Why it happens is the usual combination of fortuitous action, people with opinions they see confirmed, etc. The exact same reasons that all other moderation is performed.
Look, honestly, slashdot moderation doesn't work very well. Don't make it a reason to do or think anything. Just read the posts and respond to the content therein. That's what makes for the most interesting conversation anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not confusing anything. I'm pointing straight at reality for you, and you're simply not listening.
Ideas of this type have no value when there is no enforcement to back them up. You saying you have an "inherent" right because you believe it has no more effect upon reality than me telling you that there are little pink unicorns running in between your feet. What you're doing is exercising your imagination. The ideas you hold in such regard have absolutely zero value if not actually respected and enforced. They are NOT inherent. A tiger will eat you regardless of your ideas; likewise, the government will squash you like a bug regardless of your ideas. Your ideas won't help you one bit unless those in power agree with them. And they don't. Rights only have meaning when they are supported and enforced.
Really? Tell that to the 30 million Americans presently in jail; tell it to those injured by arbitrary government action. Exercising what YOU think is a right in the face of a much more powerful entity that doesn't agree won't "make sure your rights are not eroded", what it'll do is make sure that you get stomped like a bug, no doubt still squawking "but what about my rights!?!?!" The reality is, if the powers that be don't think you have any particular set of rights, then you don't have them. What you have is a worthless idea. Unless you can convince the powers that be otherwise somehow. Can you do that? I see no evidence of it, frankly.
There's a video I saw on youtube a little while back, some Christian fellow jumped into a cage with some lions. Waving his bible over his head, he approached the lions, quite secure in the idea that Jesus would protect him. I grant you up front that the level of the man's conviction was simply astounding. The lions, however, were oblivious to his beliefs, and tore him right up. People with more power -- in the form of tranquilizer guns and water hoses -- stepped in.
This is a perfect analogy for your idea of "exercising your rights in order to keep them." You walk up to the government waving your imaginary rights around -- that is, rights you are thinking are inviolate, but in fact, they are not -- and you won't "keep" those rights, you'll simply get creamed. There are no zookeepers available to save you in your role in this analogy. Just lions.
You cannot solve the problem of the lion not acknowledging Jesus with faith; you can't solve it with conviction; you can't solve it by explaining how you think things should go, or claiming you have an "inherent" right to stand there unmolested. Either you stay out of the lion's way, or you -- or someone acting in your stead -- overcome the lion with force, or you lose, all without getting to benefit from the idea you (mistakenly) held that your right trumped reality. Period. Because rights only exist as a function of power. And you, my friend, are not the lion. You are the preacher. Get it now?
No. You only "own yourself" if that idea is backed against those who would disagree, or there are no other people, so you are effectively your own judge, jury and executioner. The "assumption", as you put it, must be made of a social structure, and that structure has to be backed by power and the willingness to use it. When that isn't the case -- as when the government removed your right to warrant, probable cause, oath, affirmation, and enumeration of items searched and places to be searched within 100 miles of any US border -- you have no such right. Because rights ONLY arise as a consequence of power, and the willingness to use it. Otherwise, they're of no more substance than any other random sentence, poetic or heartfelt as such a sentence might be.
No again. The government makes no such assumption. That's why you can be thrown in a hole and waterboarded without recourse to a lawyer, etc. That's why they can assassinate you any time they feel like it; that's why they can read your bank statements, your email, your network activity in general. Because you have no rights in these areas, simply because those in power will not enforce those ideas, which makes them void in terms of protecting you -- and if rights don't protect you, they're not rights. They're just ideas. Perhaps good, perhaps not, but still, no more than thoughts.
Also, look around you. This is not a democracy. It's not even a constitutional republic any longer. We're being directly ruled, extra-constitutionally, by 454 people. Just like a banana republic. Specifically because the government no longer will enforce (as a whole, and as a individual legislators, judges and an executive) the rights that formed the basis for our allowing it to come into existence in the first place, and also because they find non-rights related issues such as article V and restrictions on ex post facto laws just too inconvenient to bother with. Without the willing co-operation of those in power, these ideas lose substance and become no more than memories and motivation (and obviously, not enough motivation, as we've let it happen.)
You mean the government was started that way. But they no longer agree, and so this idea is worth nothing. You don't own yourself; you don't own "real estate"; and you have exactly that subset of "rights" that those in power will back up for you, which is basically to say very few indeed at this point.
Yes, that's a wonderful "if." But we don't own ourselves, we don't own our lives, we can't control those who do exert control over our lives, even though they are in explicit violation of the contract the citizens made that assigns them the task of governance.
Wrong. They can take complete, exclusive control of every aspect of your life. They can take your money. Your land. Your freedom. Your reputation. Your ability to work. Your ability to travel. Your children. Your very life itself. And they can do it all on a whim, and without inconvenient oversight. You imagine you "own" these things, but this is simply because they haven't come for you in particular and you're living in an environment you've "papered over" with an incorrect idea: that you're in control. You're not.
No. If there is no means of enforcement, whatever "right" you have in mind, no matter how touchy-feely-good it is, is nothing more than a fantasy.
Then he's really confused, because read that way, image containing nuidty and intercourse with a 4 year old aren't CP unless "(3) some other crime" is apparent in the image.
I'm just giving him a chance to explain his actual opinion WRT his whacky list construction. Hence the question, and not an accusation.
There's a checkbox in the settings that, only when checked, which is not the default, allows you to install apps from other than Amazon. It's certainly easy to deal with, doesn't require any hacking, but I think it is fair to call the device "locked" in that sense. The checkbox is the lock.
Really? A mod down? For stating facts?
I mean sure, I know the mod system is broken, but... really?
And a couple of years later, when the morons in congress enact yet another ex post facto law (for the children, of course), you're a pedophile again. Welcome to reality.
HEY NOW! There is absolutely no need to engage in the slander of reptiles here!
You didn't seriously just try to say that if images of kids are devoid of artistic merit (meaning, in someone's opinion... eye of the beholder and all that), then those images are child porn, did you?
That is utter nonsense. There are no "inherent human rights." The only way you get "rights" is (a) someone has to define them, either specifically or in general, (b) someone has to have the power to defend them, (c) and then they actually have to be defended.
As long as people confuse the real situation with this "inherent" meme, they'll fail at actually solving the problem. For instance, in the USA, (c) above is where we fail. We've defined them specifically (those mentioned in the bill of rights and a few others), we've defined them generally (the 9th amendment), the government certainly has the power to defend them... but it rarely does -- in fact, it is much more likely to be the very party abusing them. This happens specifically because rights are not inherent -- they are simply grants supported by power. When power is focused on other issues, rights often mean nothing at all, other than you're proceeding under a set of incorrect assumptions.
What I expect, actually, is to replace the battery with an ultracapacitor system, including an inductive charge transfer device, that obviates the whole battery thing completely, and moves the device into the "works until the hardware breaks" domain, and removes the need for a cable completely. Tech changes. Ultracaps are coming. This whole battery thing... flash in the pan. :)
That is correct. First thing we did was unlock our Fire and then install the marketplace on it; you can install pretty much anything that works under the current OS level at that point.
However, I'm bound to point out that you can jailbreak an iPad and do the same thing... and it's trivial. As an owner of both, first, I'd say that it's a distinction without a difference. Second, as someone who hasn't found it necessary to jailbreak the iPad but has filled one with apps (I don't use it for video at all except for streaming, and I keep my music on an iPod), I'm fairly certain that my computing freedom isn't being significantly impinged upon as yet in the iOS arena.
I'm a lot more worried about the mandatory sandboxing of OS X apps as per the OS X app store rules than I am anything at all to do with iOS. The iPad, at least as long as we're talking about a tablet with 512k of ram, is essentially a very limited one-app-at-a-time machine, and the "filesystem" sucks so badly there's very little sensible file sharing among apps that can be done on it, so most apps simply don't try. My 8-core Mac is something else entirely, and Apple is beginning to have some very bad ideas about "save the children" kind of moron-features such as sandboxing. Here's hoping someone "jailbreaks" that, too. I am NOT looking forward to real computer apps having to jump through hoops -- or worse yet, being unable - to access data files. It'll be the worst of all computing worlds.
"Spelling and grammar checked"?
You do realize that some of us can actually spell, as well as write with proper grammar, don't you? Not to mention that some of us also write HTML for a living, or as an adjunct to our living -- WYSIWYG tools aren't the only way to create HTML, CSS, CGI, etc.
Also, with regard to spelling, many systems provide inline spell checking capability.
Actually, corporations not claiming ownership of work they're not entitled to and have not paid for is the best policy. But corporations are driven by lawyers, so you know they'll go with what they can do, as opposed to what they should do. Shakespeare's character had it right.
And in the meantime, if one has to forgo honesty in order to not be robbed, that's just as acceptable here as it is when you tell a cutpurse that you have no money, even though it is in your sock.
Remember: something being "the law" does not in ANY way equate with it being RIGHT. At this point in time, it just means "government supported", which in turn is your assurance that it has been approved by a group of whom the vast majority are criminals by definition, having violated the constitution many times with malice aforethought.
And how would one get this consent? Via a medium, I presume? Dead humans are dead meat. No more, no less. No people. These dead bodies can't give consent, and the idea is ludicrous anyway -- they can't care. Because there is no "they."
I grant you that any specific interest in this is *quite* peculiar, but then again, it isn't the first time. There have been entire fads of drawing, painting, shooting, and collecting, pictures of dead humans. I refer you, regretfully, to memento mori (definition) and, even more regretfully, to the various flickr groups.
In the case of necrophilia, there is only one party, and obviously they consent if they choose to engage. The "other party" is strictly in the imagination of the beholder -- there's no one home. The problem I have with it is that what very likely is home are legions of bacteria who are presently engaged in consuming the host, and are likely just as interested in consuming the, er, visitor. If this is understood (and really, just how ignorant do you have to be to not understand this), then I conclude that choosing to engage is an indicator of self-destructive intent. And no, I don't think condoms sufficiently obviate the risk.
Animals can't consent any more than a trumpet can, but, presuming you don't hurt them, I doubt they care, either, and so what. No one seems to be concerned if the animal consents before we knock them over the head and eat them, so it really seems ludicrous to me to worry if they consent to playing North Dakota to your South Carolina given that the "don't injure them" caveat is in play.
Underage sex is a legal position; there are obviously those "underage" who are capable, competent, and eager -- and who are being abused by the law, not by the sex and/or the partner. There are just as obviously those who are forced and who are injured, and just as in any other case when people are coerced and harmed, society needs (and has, in almost infinite degree) remedies for that. Unfortunately, as long as we define "problem" as "age mismatch = shit one's self and then fall in it" we're just making it worse for the vast majority of people. Getting the politicians off this horse is nigh impossible, though. It's the low hanging fruit, and no, that wasn't a pun.
Ok, granted, the feds are complete idiots with unbelievable numbers of stupid, often obviously unconstitutional laws, and just because the feds say "no" is a terrible reason to write anything in particular off...
But regardless, actual child porn -- not of sexually active teenagers, of course, but of children -- presents a problem for the child, even if, as some would argue, the majority of the harm comes from the adults hysterically imposing said harm upon the participants. Regardless of its source, the kid is going to suffer some emotional fallout. So child porn is bad, period, in our society. Because there is harm done to the child.
One of the best examples I can think of for "bad law" are the lines in (ok, all over) the sand that the law draws about consent. I can easily find you teenagers who are quite capable of informed consent; and I can just as easily find you adults (that is, people 21 and over) who couldn't even tell you what informed consent is. You know what those age lines really are? A complete cop-out delivered by a society that is too immature to deal with the issue of sexuality in any kind of reasonable fashion -- a late stage superstitious society that squeezes its collective eyes shut in literal horror at the idea of a 16 year old having pleasurable, consenting sex, but watches eagerly when kids the same age -- and younger -- are portrayed in movies as engaged in bloody combat with injury and death both being commonplace. In other words, our lawmakers, our citizens, and the cultural mores that drive them, are nothing more, generally speaking, than a bunch of sick, ineffective failtards.
But hey... you keep rolling with "it's a federal law." Because, you know, that's a sure thing.
First of all, IQ is only relevant to a particular population. Even among humans, an IQ test issued in one region won't accurately reflect the IQ of those in another because of built-in language, cultural and technological bias issues that are integral to the testing process. Secondly, measuring the IQ of an animal with a human IQ test is going to get results that are WAY off, probably far underestimating the animal's capacity for induction and reasoning because there's an entirely different sensorium involved, but even that isn't certain. Please don't quote psychobabble without a background in it. It does no one, including the animals here, any good. It just looks uninformed and clueless -- because it is.
I know of no one who is more pro-animal than I am, or who would more like to see them achieve a level of rights in our society far, far beyond where they are now, but it still tweaks the living heck out of me to see nonsense promoted as fact.
You have *zero* comprehension of what IQ is, lol.
He said big, not plasma. Plasma is not the only way to go big. A projector and a bare wall and some paint will get you a bigger TV than any plasma made, and at a relatively low cost as well. A projector capable of delivering a 300" 1080p display is about $860 right now.
Um.... no. You're a little out of touch, there. Do you realize a 17" LCD with HDMI, etc., is about $100? And that all the old CRT TV's can no longer receive on-air broadcasts without an external converter system? I haven't even seen a CRT TV in some years now -- outside of the local landfill.
Also changing. Cable doesn't hold a candle to streaming -- both in convenience and WRT content -- and again, everyone I know streams. Computers, Roku, AppleTV, Bluray players with built in apps, iPads, Fires, phones, etc... Satellite systems and cable connections are being let go when the contracts expire. Most dishes around here (Rural Montana, so you'd think we'd use em if we needed em) are disconnected, wires hanging at the dish. The cable company gave up last year, so it's no longer even an option.
Oh, come now. Again, I live in an extremely rural area. We're 300 miles from the nearest city worthy of the name. There's cell coverage all along the highways, in every town, and over a surprising amount of adjacent area, including the entire lake (Fort Peck lake, the thing is blinkin' huge.) Most of the US that doesn't have cell coverage... doesn't really *need* cell coverage. There's a distinct difference between "3rd world lack of needed infrastructure" and "no one goes out there into the boonies because there's nothing of interest." And even out there, we have ham radio repeaters, sheriff's department coverage, ranchers have radios and wired telephones... nah, sorry, that whole third world thing... that only applies to our government's current abandonment of the constitution in favor of fiat rule. Our infrastructure is outstanding, if a little frayed around the edges here and there.
So... your thesis is, if the country allows poor people to exist, it's a 3rd-world country? I dunno about that. What about a country -- like this one -- that allows one to get out of that situation by virtue of paying attention in school, learning well, applying a quality work ethic, and not adopting fringe cultural variations such as your pants hanging below your butt, tattoos all over your face and neck, and a mangled form of English only understood by fans of rap videos? Personally, I think we're pretty advanced in that we allow such cultural choices to be made. If you want to be a fringe element, you can do that. If you want to get out, as it were, your odds are excellent if you simply observe the successful strategies that lead to your goal and emulate them.
Personally, I think the worst cultural negative we apply is school sports; young people often follow, usually at the behest of their schools, a sports-centric approach in the hopes that this will bring them the cultural status, position and wealth they would like to have, not realizing that the odds are hugely stacked against them and that following an academic path instead would serve them far better. This is something I see locally -- trying to hire young people with adequate reading and writing and even basic math skills is quite a task; on the other hand, if throwing a ball a
Well, it's simple enough: The technical elements of the story, which itself is clearly fictional, are scientifically possible, as far as we know. Longer life (immortal youths), artificial service beings created as dark-eyed virgins, custom food creation, that sort of thing. We don't have most of these things yet, but they are certainly possible in a scientific framework, just technically very difficult for us at the moment. The same applies at the time the Koran was made up; those things were more fantasy then, as science was considerably more jumbled as a process and the technologies required for these not even in view on the horizon at the time, but the bottom line is they are technically possible but fiction as written. A God -- a being with enormous abilities compared to ours -- also possible within a scientific framework, but also not in evidence in any way. Ergo, science fiction. More clearly so today than ever before.
Notice I didn't say it was *good* science fiction. That's something else entirely. But it's good enough for some.
...the Cartesians. Just a bunch of squares. Cubic, man.
Sigh. No, it doesn't. It shows that he had as much as 45 minutes to create a post, perhaps even a thoughtful one. That's all it shows.
Again, because I know how slashdot works. (a) Site luminaries have unlimited mod points and (b) there are many moderators at any one moment, and (c) when a story has few posts, the mods are all looking at the same few posts. The end results is that you can go to +5 from -1 in about 1 second. Why it happens is the usual combination of fortuitous action, people with opinions they see confirmed, etc. The exact same reasons that all other moderation is performed.
Look, honestly, slashdot moderation doesn't work very well. Don't make it a reason to do or think anything. Just read the posts and respond to the content therein. That's what makes for the most interesting conversation anyway.