Some cultures, such as our own, also use marriage as an institution to shore up child rearing efforts.
That's just a fantasy. Kids from intact marriages just as often come out horribly; kids of single parents, and sometimes no parents, just as often come out just fine. There's all manner of mixed results both ways -- there's no evidence at all that marriage is doing us any favors in the child-rearing department. Kids need love, education, healthcare -- they don't need parents that are mired in an unhappy marriage, and quite often, the latter works strongly against the actual needs. Our society isn't using marriage to "help kids" at all. If anything, it uses marriage against them by decimating the financial position of both parties when they become tired of one another, which in turn materially disadvantages the children; and forces the kids to live in an atmosphere of discomfort - or even hate - until the pressure of the bad marriage overcomes the inappropriate and harmful social pressure. if the married parties can't face those pressures, then instead, we have a household full of people who don't want to be around one another. Good job. Not.
you assert 'natural limits' and yet deny the law the right to arbitrarily define them
If this is too difficult for you to understand - that informed consent isn't consequent to an exact age, but instead to a complex set of interrelated understandings -- then you're an ethical cripple. The basis of liberty is informed consent. Informed consent requires understanding the issue(s) at hand. Not being 16, or 18, or 21. It is absolutely possible to be 30 years old and completely unable to give anything even remotely resembling informed consent; it is absolutely possible to be 13 years old and be able to give it, in detail and at length. Every law that says "at age so-and-so" inevitably directly harms people on both sides of the line it draws, and every such law is a demonstration of a failure to legislate competently.
Would you advocate a one-time assessment, or merely an ad-hock(sic) application of the law at the whim of the arbiter?
Generally speaking, I advocate qualifying for making particular decisions before you're called on to actually make them. Just as you must pass a driving test before we let you on the road, I would have you pass a test on sexual issues before you were allowed to engage in sex. I would have you pass a test on how the federal government works before you were allowed to vote in a federal election or referendum. I would have you pass a test on known consequences and the general immediate physiological effects of drinking, before you were allowed to drink or purchase alcohol. I would have you pass a test on the constitution before you were allowed to stand for office. Etc.
I would no more want my kids to be involved in matters sexual before they were well educated about them and competent to decide if they should be involved, than I would have an "electrician" in my house who doesn't know why we have a neutral line, or why a secondary breaker box isn't grounded, or what electrical phase means.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with qualifying people based on their actual capabilities, because we are not all equally competent in any particular matter or matters. Not created that way, don't grow up that way, can't be educated to be that way, and will likely never be that way even under the most optimistic genetic rewiring schemes. The law... the draw an age line in the sand idea... is stupid. It's not a "compromise", it's an act of idiocy that does not reflect the actual realities we face, and it does constant harm of significant nature up to and including completely destroying people's lives.
In the United States this is largely false. You cannot live together with more than a handful of people from different families in basica
Now you're just being ridiculous. If you suggest someone go elsewhere, you have to have somewhere that it is practical, possible, for them to go. Otherwise your suggestion is bullshit; which I think is the case here.
Desert Island
Again, you know of one that isn't some society's claimed property, and therefore subject to the rules of that society, and is large enough to support habitation? Where? Be specific.
Anyplace no one from the government ever goes, like most of Alaska
No. This is just squatting on an existing society's property. Doesn't solve the problem (and will probably cause others.)
diamond pony
strawman. I said you either comply with society, or it crushes you. Nothing in your pony exposition addresses that either way.
In a sane society, the criteria for an obligating bond such as marriage would be "informed consent" and nothing else. Informed itself is limited by the capacity to be informed, and so creates natural age, intelligence and species limits; consent is the legal line one crosses, and so should be witnessed and recorded by the state -- this is what creates the obligation portion of the bond and carries it over to inheritance, debt, and so on.
But... we don't live in a sane society. We live in a society guided by rank superstition and goat-age desert morality, a condition exacerbated by a legal system that tries to solve very grey problems with black and white lines in the sand such as "age." So don't hold your breath for recognition of polygamy as a valid legal bond.
On a more positive note, you can live together with any number of consenting adults you choose to and there are very few restrictions on that anywhere in the country. The downside consists of things like insurance, inheritance, hospital visiting rights -- the things that an official bond enable.
If you don't want people telling you what to do, you don't have to live in society.
Not really disagreeing with most of what you said, but that bit... I'm just not sure that's actually an option. How would you suggest going about it? There is no "free" land; nowhere one can hunt or homestead outside of a nation's rules; at least not that I'm aware of.
I think the actual options are (a) live within the bounds society sets, or (b) put yourself in a position were society is likely to crush you like a bug.
Look, no one - well, not me, and not anyone with any sense - is thinking that building them wrong is a good idea. Yeah, they should be designed so they can cool themselves without toasting the local biology. Building them on fault lines is not called for. Etc.
But this does not reasonably equate to "No building nukes." Which is what we got out of the combination of what you call "responsible, reasoned, science-based pushback" and the foaming-at-the-mouth wackos who see imaginary radiation exuding from any nuclear installation, putting dents in their tin-foil hats.
For God's sake, build geothermal plants
Skipping the superstition -- "God" cares no more about this than the easter bunny, and for the same reason -- tell me: How many average geothermal plants does it take to equal the output of one average nuke (which would be about 853 MWe today)? 1/10th of a plant? 10 plants? How many sites are appropriate for geothermal taps? And what about cost? Environmental impact? What happens when we move all that heat to the surface? In other words, exactly how practical is it to suggest that geothermal plants be built *instead* of nukes?
Note that I am not in the least biased against geothermal plants. I'm simply observing that since you seem to be suggesting that they be built instead of nukes, it would be useful to know how they'd do in that role. We know a huge solar installation in the SW desert would generate enough power to serve the whole country. How does geothermal stand up in light of that?
After WWII, during testing we actually NUKED a lot of ships.
And we're talking *really* nuked; for instance the Bikini test lit off a 23 kt bomb and did it right under the ships.
The only vessel completely destroyed was a landing craft that the bomb was actually suspended from (90 feet underwater.) They never found any part of it. All the big ships survived intact, in the sense that they still had coherent hulls, etc. Not that you'd have wanted to be there...
Totally agree. Too bad they take so long to build. By the time one is half-built, the dithering morons in congress will probably screw the process uo one way or another. Or the scaremongers will get in there and rile up the fuckarow artists who will go out and get signatures alongside their anti-di-hydrogen monoxide petetions.
It's hardly wrong to censor posts that violate the terms of use for a message board.
You're confusing the idea that you have the power to control something, with the rightness of doing so. Censorship is wrong. Period.
The problem with censorship is not that some fellow being offensive for the sake of his own amusement is censored; the problem is that, just as we see every day here on slashdot, once the power is in place, what actually gets censored is what the censor disagrees with.
This is why censorship is always wrong. Because it is a power that is inevitably abused on the one hand, and serves no real useful purpose on the other.
And that's exactly what we're seeing happen at Apple; these posts are 100% relevant to Apple; to the iPhone 4; to consumers who have bought, or may buy, the iPhone; the facts of the matter, as reported are of extreme interest to all parties -- and Apple's reaction is to delete the threads.
On slashdot, post an opinion that isn't in line with the majority, and you will be censored. Slashdot, like Apple, declines to fix the broken system, because the Slashdot folks themselves benefit, they think, from being able to knock off posts at will. Read their comments about using those powers of moderation -- it's quite clear they're ready and willing to abuse them (and experience shows that they indeed do exactly that... some commenters are followed from thread to thread and systematically modded down. You can't even *do* that with normal moderation powers -- you run out of points in 15 posts.)
At Apple, if you don't drink the Kool-aid, you're the enemy, and you're going to get it right in the neck. It's really the same thing as what happens here on Slashdot (and a zillion other venues on the net), and it happens because censorship is allowed at the corporate and individual level, even when those entities are creating a forum for use by the public.
At your home, when some guy comes to your door, we allow you the power to say, no, you can't come in, and I'm not going to discuss it. If you run a store, and we find you're doing that, for instance, because they guy in question is black and you don't like that -- we say, oh no, you're running a public enterprise and you will serve the public, or you will serve no one at all. That's a good model for how online discussions should be handled; the power to select is the power to abuse, and we know that when such power is extended generally, abuse is inevitable.
Yes, people might say things you don't like. But (a) you (and others) can answer them, and (b) the world is full of such events. Get over it. Steve Jobs -- and the people who follow his directions -- act like children in a schoolyard with their petty abuses. It is not admirable, and in the end, it is not right in and of itself, nor is it right that society keeps the window open for such abuses. Yet they do have that power. So let's call it what it is: A thing done wrong, with a power that isn't illegal because the system has failed, not because anyone should have the right to control speech in a forum open to the public.
And yes, I'm an Apple customer - Macs, iPods, iPads, software. I have absolutely no personal respect for Steve Jobs remaining. He's an utter loony, condemned by his own repeated bizarre practices.
You're responsible for protecting yourself. Don't expose your data unless you need to; then change it if you can. Don't put your money where it can be stolen. Etc. (Wo)Man up. The world is not here to wrap you in cotton balls.
All loans that include interest are a "raw deal" for the borrower, and a sweetheart deal for the lender.
The most important key to doing well financially is to avoid incurring debt completely. Money goes much further.
The hook our society embeds in the naive is the "gotta have it now" hook. Kids, home, car, new styles, fine meals, etc... "gotta have it now." You pull that hook out, and you'll begin to win. When the last vestige of debt goes away, you'll find yourself pulling ahead so fast you'll wonder what all the fuss was about... until you remember how much of your income was going into interest and fees.
If you have a secure opportunity to earn interest, then yes, by all means, take it. Never be a borrower. Remember this: Borrowing makes money worth less - a lot less. You'll have less of it overall, and you won't have any more "stuff", either. All you get is stuff moved in time, from the future to now - but you get a lot less of it. So don't do it.
I've got a big screen - 204" diagonal - and watch 1080p on it. 1080p Blueray outperforms anything I can pull through my 10 mb/s pipe in the visual sense, and I'm not talking about anything subtle, either. Crisp edges, snappy transitions even when the whole frame changes at once, and when there is such a transition, the very first frame is fully resolved.
I've often wondered about the apparent difference in the ability of people to perceive the quality of what they're watching; I constantly hear people talking about streaming video as "the future" or "all I ever need", but... it's really pretty bad as compared to a Bluray, and frankly, I'd rather not spend my time watching it if I have a choice. It's like listening to music through a tiny, tinny little speaker. You can, but... if you have a good audio system, why would you?
I am very familiar with the differences between satellite, HD-DVD and Blurray, and Internet streaming (Netflix to youtube) against Bluray (and the obsolete HD-DVD)... there's no contest at all.
There are particular content types that really make this evident. For instance, high density CGI as in Avatar, the more recent Star Trek, and Starship Troopers all look not just a little bit better on Bluray, but oodles and oodles better (highly technical term, you may not be familiar with oodles.) Whereas your average shot-as-usual film uses wide open f-stops, most everything in the frame is blurry anyway, and who could tell if one pixel resolves from another, when they're pretty much the same anyway. Me, I like my films sharp, and maybe that's why I so strongly prefer Bluray. If you *have* sharp content, Bluray can get it to the screen for you. Streaming video... not unless the frame is still and has time to accumulate all its detail over multiple incoming corrections.
Now, with a screen the size of mine, I'd be tempted by 4k x 4k video, however, I surely wouldn't expect to see anything worthwhile from... youtube. Not talking content, just quality. The actual bit rate of [30 fps x 4k x 4k x 24 bit] RGB or YCC is horrific (about 12 gb/s). Never mind that we're already well past 24 bits, and that we like 60 fps. That takes us past 24 gb/s. And compression in this domain is lossy as heck; you do not get back out of the decompression the same content that went into the compressor.
You're not going to get 12 gb/s, or even 6 gb/s, through any pipe I'm likely to have in the next few years. So what happens is it is compressed to a fraction of what it originally was. And you know what? If what I end up with is a chunky, inaccurate mess, then WTF is the point of a 4k projector?
Now, if you're next door to the youtube servers and have a reliable 10- or 20-gb/s connection... well, your mileage will (hopefully) differ. And I envy you. But for me... Internet video is to be avoided if at all possible. 4k Internet video... not even going to try. Maybe if 1080p looks good, someday, 4k might become worth looking into. But as of right now, 1080p over the net looks like pixelated, frame-lagging dog doo... so 4096... no thanks.
As far as I'm concerned, if you wear the hat, you're entitled to the position. The entrepreneur who successfully pulls off multiple roles has hugely outperformed a company that requires a unique person in all of them. And s/he probably has a terrible headache, too, even if s/he loves the work, but that's a separate issue.
No, that doesn't solve the problem. With distance comes additional wave peaks; any one of them can occlude the view. All you'd get would be a sharp photo of the intervening wavefront. Not the boom. It more depends on the height above the water of the camera when the photo was taken. Which in turn shouldn't be a huge problem -- it isn't like the photographers will be out there in canoes.
I suspect there's something going on here - some damage that occurred, or an injury - that they're trying to prevent from recurring. It's vaguely possible they're covering something up... perhaps the state of wildlife at the booms, or collection of heavier crude around the booms... but since you can take perfectly horrific shots on the beaches, I just don't see what the benefit to them would be to try and cover up those kinds of things, so I tend to doubt it.
Every time drinkypoo says "we can take back our country," we get a little piece of it back. Every time fyngyrz say "we are all fucked" we give a little more up.
Utter nonsense, without reason or objective fact to back it up. We get *nothing* back when he says anything; we lose *nothing* when I say anything. Losses and gains are made at levels we cannot affect: In the legislature and the high courts.
Look, if you don't believe me, one option is data gathering. Just go start an argument with a cop over one of the (many, many) injustices the "justice" system perpetrates through them and with their collusion. For instance, light up a pipe full of hash while you explain to them that it's a personal choice, it's victimless, and neither the state or the fed have the right to tell you not to do it in or on your own property. Or buy some chemical glassware without getting the right permits first, explaining that you just want to teach your kid basic chemistry. Or try to sell your body, explaining to the nice officer that it's yours, not his or anyone else's, and you will decide what you will and will not do for remuneration, whether it be digging ditches, rowing boats, or pumping his granny full of warm spooge if she's got $20 and wants said service, rather than a boat rowed. Or give 'em a good argument about privacy while sending emails back and forth that contain instructions on how to build a nuclear weapon.
See how that works out for you. And I feel bad for even suggesting that, because I know you're going to come out of such a confrontation with your butt in a sling, a far worse outcome than you really deserve for simply being naive. But unfortunately, that really is how the system works. You can save yourself some pain here, because I'm going to tell you the results beforehand: They'll crush you like a bug.
I'm going to say that we can take our country back.
And I'll listen to you say it, and agree that you have every bit of my support in that you should be able to say so. But I know that you are facing powers far greater than anything you can bring to bear, and I won't participate in any lost causes. You're a flaming optimist in my estimation; I see absolutely no way you, or we, can "take the country back." We do not have the numbers; we do not have the weapons; we do not have a place to stand a defend (and make no mistake, you will need such a concrete thing);
I should also mention that I'm a martial artist of many decades, and a weapons (small arms, edged weapons, and striking weapons) expert. When I tell you it isn't going to work, I'm talking the whole gamut: Strategy, tactics, practical issues of supply, manpower, and community support. Not. Going. To. Happen. This is not the 1700s. If you try to face down the government, they will take you and beat you like a red-headed stepchild. And then they'll hang you up as a demonstration to anyone else with revolutionary ideas. You have no conception of the power they can, and will, wield at the wave of a hand; more than you could arrange for with years of unbroken work, billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of fanatical followers. None of which you have anyway.
Two points. First, I do not recognize that you are correct.
That's evidence that you're not paying attention, not that I am incorrect. Nor do you present any reasoning that would show that I am incorrect.
Second, by assuming that nothing can turn this around, you have guaranteed that you will not work to turn this around
I also assume that I will not be able to fly by flapping my arms; that I will not be able to read your mind no matter how hard I squint; and that sticking my head under a multi-ton press will not stop the press face from reaching the base plate. And I am absolutely right to make such assumptions.
The primary fault with your reasoning is that you think that you can reverse something that has enormous force behind it, by exerting a tiny little bit of pressure. You don't recognize the forces involved in the issue at hand here, literally have failed to identify them, nor have you accurately evaluated the amount and kind of pressure they exert, and so you think that some squabbling in a courtroom will get you somewhere.
As someone who has seen his share of courtrooms and then some, I have learned that fighting the system -- literally trying to say that the law, either in statute or in the person of an officer, is wrong -- is the one sure way to get the system to turn around and demonstrate that it has one hell of a lot more power than the defendant does, regardless of if you are actually correct, or not. I have seen everything from alternate charges (resisting arrest, public nuisance, creating a disturbance, failure to comply with, etc.) pressed to the limit, to outright ridiculous "interpretation" of the letter of the law. Review the reasoning behind the current understanding of the commerce clause to see this writ large; or just read up on police officers enticing people outside their homes so that the yelling they're doing changes from ok, because it's in their home, to a public disturbance because it's one inch outside the door, though still on the porch. Which will, in each and every case, be supported by the court.
A secondary fault is that you think (and truly, I don't know why) that the populace and their elected and appointed servants are rational and will support sensible procedure, rational evaluation, and so forth. I have observed that the population is largely superstitious, bases their ideas upon what they think imaginary entities have told them to do in some book, or an astrological forecast, or in the words of some nitwit in a pulpit; and that this leads them to do the wrong thing both as individuals and en masse. Subsequent to this realization, I have also learned that you cannot change the mindset of these people by providing rational input, because they're not rational in the first place. And the very stronghold of those people? The courts and the legislature. Swear by the bible, sonny; pray before we make law; may "god" bless the American people... ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
The tertiary error you're making is the assumption that the political and justice systems are amenable to you mucking about with the power structure they've created, and that they'll simply let it happen. They won't. Those structures have been very carefully tweaked over the years to benefit a particular class (which you and I are not in, nor will we ever be), and trying to screw with them will get you burned.
Lastly, you should keep in mind that they've created a special place just for you. It's the new(ish) permanent low-class citizen; the one with a criminal record. You won't be able to get a decent job; every word you say in public honestly attached to your name and person will be credited to "convicted felon so-and-so" (which will not, sadly, come with any caveats); you won't be able to establish credit; get insurance; go to school; the list goes on. In addition, you'll be listed on the "offender" list that provides special designation for your particul
Well the argument that it's your body is fairly strong one I think.
Considering that there is zero evidence that there is a "you" once you're dead, I think the argument that it's "your body" is hilarious.
I also think that if you're selfish enough as a living person to plan to deny someone else a working organ they're in need of once you're already dead from unrelated causes, you're really kind of a lowlife.
The only real problem here -- and it is a serious issue -- is that if we allow mining of our dead bodies for reusable parts, as long as it's easier to get them from our bodies (as opposed to an extra-corporeally created organ), the risk exists that someone will make us dead in order to do said mining. So some care is called for.
Slashdot Mirror
That's just a fantasy. Kids from intact marriages just as often come out horribly; kids of single parents, and sometimes no parents, just as often come out just fine. There's all manner of mixed results both ways -- there's no evidence at all that marriage is doing us any favors in the child-rearing department. Kids need love, education, healthcare -- they don't need parents that are mired in an unhappy marriage, and quite often, the latter works strongly against the actual needs. Our society isn't using marriage to "help kids" at all. If anything, it uses marriage against them by decimating the financial position of both parties when they become tired of one another, which in turn materially disadvantages the children; and forces the kids to live in an atmosphere of discomfort - or even hate - until the pressure of the bad marriage overcomes the inappropriate and harmful social pressure. if the married parties can't face those pressures, then instead, we have a household full of people who don't want to be around one another. Good job. Not.
If this is too difficult for you to understand - that informed consent isn't consequent to an exact age, but instead to a complex set of interrelated understandings -- then you're an ethical cripple. The basis of liberty is informed consent. Informed consent requires understanding the issue(s) at hand. Not being 16, or 18, or 21. It is absolutely possible to be 30 years old and completely unable to give anything even remotely resembling informed consent; it is absolutely possible to be 13 years old and be able to give it, in detail and at length. Every law that says "at age so-and-so" inevitably directly harms people on both sides of the line it draws, and every such law is a demonstration of a failure to legislate competently.
Generally speaking, I advocate qualifying for making particular decisions before you're called on to actually make them. Just as you must pass a driving test before we let you on the road, I would have you pass a test on sexual issues before you were allowed to engage in sex. I would have you pass a test on how the federal government works before you were allowed to vote in a federal election or referendum. I would have you pass a test on known consequences and the general immediate physiological effects of drinking, before you were allowed to drink or purchase alcohol. I would have you pass a test on the constitution before you were allowed to stand for office. Etc.
I would no more want my kids to be involved in matters sexual before they were well educated about them and competent to decide if they should be involved, than I would have an "electrician" in my house who doesn't know why we have a neutral line, or why a secondary breaker box isn't grounded, or what electrical phase means.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with qualifying people based on their actual capabilities, because we are not all equally competent in any particular matter or matters. Not created that way, don't grow up that way, can't be educated to be that way, and will likely never be that way even under the most optimistic genetic rewiring schemes. The law... the draw an age line in the sand idea... is stupid. It's not a "compromise", it's an act of idiocy that does not reflect the actual realities we face, and it does constant harm of significant nature up to and including completely destroying people's lives.
Now you're just being ridiculous. If you suggest someone go elsewhere, you have to have somewhere that it is practical, possible, for them to go. Otherwise your suggestion is bullshit; which I think is the case here.
Again, you know of one that isn't some society's claimed property, and therefore subject to the rules of that society, and is large enough to support habitation? Where? Be specific.
No. This is just squatting on an existing society's property. Doesn't solve the problem (and will probably cause others.)
strawman. I said you either comply with society, or it crushes you. Nothing in your pony exposition addresses that either way.
What are the concrete religious benefits of marriage? Other than keeping your fellows-in-religion from ostracizing you?
Where?
In a sane society, the criteria for an obligating bond such as marriage would be "informed consent" and nothing else. Informed itself is limited by the capacity to be informed, and so creates natural age, intelligence and species limits; consent is the legal line one crosses, and so should be witnessed and recorded by the state -- this is what creates the obligation portion of the bond and carries it over to inheritance, debt, and so on.
But... we don't live in a sane society. We live in a society guided by rank superstition and goat-age desert morality, a condition exacerbated by a legal system that tries to solve very grey problems with black and white lines in the sand such as "age." So don't hold your breath for recognition of polygamy as a valid legal bond.
On a more positive note, you can live together with any number of consenting adults you choose to and there are very few restrictions on that anywhere in the country. The downside consists of things like insurance, inheritance, hospital visiting rights -- the things that an official bond enable.
Not really disagreeing with most of what you said, but that bit... I'm just not sure that's actually an option. How would you suggest going about it? There is no "free" land; nowhere one can hunt or homestead outside of a nation's rules; at least not that I'm aware of.
I think the actual options are (a) live within the bounds society sets, or (b) put yourself in a position were society is likely to crush you like a bug.
Look, no one - well, not me, and not anyone with any sense - is thinking that building them wrong is a good idea. Yeah, they should be designed so they can cool themselves without toasting the local biology. Building them on fault lines is not called for. Etc.
But this does not reasonably equate to "No building nukes." Which is what we got out of the combination of what you call "responsible, reasoned, science-based pushback" and the foaming-at-the-mouth wackos who see imaginary radiation exuding from any nuclear installation, putting dents in their tin-foil hats.
Skipping the superstition -- "God" cares no more about this than the easter bunny, and for the same reason -- tell me: How many average geothermal plants does it take to equal the output of one average nuke (which would be about 853 MWe today)? 1/10th of a plant? 10 plants? How many sites are appropriate for geothermal taps? And what about cost? Environmental impact? What happens when we move all that heat to the surface? In other words, exactly how practical is it to suggest that geothermal plants be built *instead* of nukes?
Note that I am not in the least biased against geothermal plants. I'm simply observing that since you seem to be suggesting that they be built instead of nukes, it would be useful to know how they'd do in that role. We know a huge solar installation in the SW desert would generate enough power to serve the whole country. How does geothermal stand up in light of that?
Over to you.
Yes, YOU! FREEZE!
And we're talking *really* nuked; for instance the Bikini test lit off a 23 kt bomb and did it right under the ships.
The only vessel completely destroyed was a landing craft that the bomb was actually suspended from (90 feet underwater.) They never found any part of it. All the big ships survived intact, in the sense that they still had coherent hulls, etc. Not that you'd have wanted to be there...
Totally agree. Too bad they take so long to build. By the time one is half-built, the dithering morons in congress will probably screw the process uo one way or another. Or the scaremongers will get in there and rile up the fuckarow artists who will go out and get signatures alongside their anti-di-hydrogen monoxide petetions.
Yeah, Secretes is the one who committed suicide by beating himself over the head with a ham hock, right?
You're confusing the idea that you have the power to control something, with the rightness of doing so. Censorship is wrong. Period.
The problem with censorship is not that some fellow being offensive for the sake of his own amusement is censored; the problem is that, just as we see every day here on slashdot, once the power is in place, what actually gets censored is what the censor disagrees with.
This is why censorship is always wrong. Because it is a power that is inevitably abused on the one hand, and serves no real useful purpose on the other.
And that's exactly what we're seeing happen at Apple; these posts are 100% relevant to Apple; to the iPhone 4; to consumers who have bought, or may buy, the iPhone; the facts of the matter, as reported are of extreme interest to all parties -- and Apple's reaction is to delete the threads.
On slashdot, post an opinion that isn't in line with the majority, and you will be censored. Slashdot, like Apple, declines to fix the broken system, because the Slashdot folks themselves benefit, they think, from being able to knock off posts at will. Read their comments about using those powers of moderation -- it's quite clear they're ready and willing to abuse them (and experience shows that they indeed do exactly that... some commenters are followed from thread to thread and systematically modded down. You can't even *do* that with normal moderation powers -- you run out of points in 15 posts.)
At Apple, if you don't drink the Kool-aid, you're the enemy, and you're going to get it right in the neck. It's really the same thing as what happens here on Slashdot (and a zillion other venues on the net), and it happens because censorship is allowed at the corporate and individual level, even when those entities are creating a forum for use by the public.
At your home, when some guy comes to your door, we allow you the power to say, no, you can't come in, and I'm not going to discuss it. If you run a store, and we find you're doing that, for instance, because they guy in question is black and you don't like that -- we say, oh no, you're running a public enterprise and you will serve the public, or you will serve no one at all. That's a good model for how online discussions should be handled; the power to select is the power to abuse, and we know that when such power is extended generally, abuse is inevitable.
Yes, people might say things you don't like. But (a) you (and others) can answer them, and (b) the world is full of such events. Get over it. Steve Jobs -- and the people who follow his directions -- act like children in a schoolyard with their petty abuses. It is not admirable, and in the end, it is not right in and of itself, nor is it right that society keeps the window open for such abuses. Yet they do have that power. So let's call it what it is: A thing done wrong, with a power that isn't illegal because the system has failed, not because anyone should have the right to control speech in a forum open to the public.
And yes, I'm an Apple customer - Macs, iPods, iPads, software. I have absolutely no personal respect for Steve Jobs remaining. He's an utter loony, condemned by his own repeated bizarre practices.
No. Who told you life was fair?
You're responsible for protecting yourself. Don't expose your data unless you need to; then change it if you can. Don't put your money where it can be stolen. Etc. (Wo)Man up. The world is not here to wrap you in cotton balls.
"you can't firewall stupidity"
All loans that include interest are a "raw deal" for the borrower, and a sweetheart deal for the lender.
The most important key to doing well financially is to avoid incurring debt completely. Money goes much further.
The hook our society embeds in the naive is the "gotta have it now" hook. Kids, home, car, new styles, fine meals, etc... "gotta have it now." You pull that hook out, and you'll begin to win. When the last vestige of debt goes away, you'll find yourself pulling ahead so fast you'll wonder what all the fuss was about... until you remember how much of your income was going into interest and fees.
If you have a secure opportunity to earn interest, then yes, by all means, take it. Never be a borrower. Remember this: Borrowing makes money worth less - a lot less. You'll have less of it overall, and you won't have any more "stuff", either. All you get is stuff moved in time, from the future to now - but you get a lot less of it. So don't do it.
I've got a big screen - 204" diagonal - and watch 1080p on it. 1080p Blueray outperforms anything I can pull through my 10 mb/s pipe in the visual sense, and I'm not talking about anything subtle, either. Crisp edges, snappy transitions even when the whole frame changes at once, and when there is such a transition, the very first frame is fully resolved.
I've often wondered about the apparent difference in the ability of people to perceive the quality of what they're watching; I constantly hear people talking about streaming video as "the future" or "all I ever need", but... it's really pretty bad as compared to a Bluray, and frankly, I'd rather not spend my time watching it if I have a choice. It's like listening to music through a tiny, tinny little speaker. You can, but... if you have a good audio system, why would you?
I am very familiar with the differences between satellite, HD-DVD and Blurray, and Internet streaming (Netflix to youtube) against Bluray (and the obsolete HD-DVD)... there's no contest at all.
There are particular content types that really make this evident. For instance, high density CGI as in Avatar, the more recent Star Trek, and Starship Troopers all look not just a little bit better on Bluray, but oodles and oodles better (highly technical term, you may not be familiar with oodles.) Whereas your average shot-as-usual film uses wide open f-stops, most everything in the frame is blurry anyway, and who could tell if one pixel resolves from another, when they're pretty much the same anyway. Me, I like my films sharp, and maybe that's why I so strongly prefer Bluray. If you *have* sharp content, Bluray can get it to the screen for you. Streaming video... not unless the frame is still and has time to accumulate all its detail over multiple incoming corrections.
Now, with a screen the size of mine, I'd be tempted by 4k x 4k video, however, I surely wouldn't expect to see anything worthwhile from... youtube. Not talking content, just quality. The actual bit rate of [30 fps x 4k x 4k x 24 bit] RGB or YCC is horrific (about 12 gb/s). Never mind that we're already well past 24 bits, and that we like 60 fps. That takes us past 24 gb/s. And compression in this domain is lossy as heck; you do not get back out of the decompression the same content that went into the compressor.
You're not going to get 12 gb/s, or even 6 gb/s, through any pipe I'm likely to have in the next few years. So what happens is it is compressed to a fraction of what it originally was. And you know what? If what I end up with is a chunky, inaccurate mess, then WTF is the point of a 4k projector?
Now, if you're next door to the youtube servers and have a reliable 10- or 20-gb/s connection... well, your mileage will (hopefully) differ. And I envy you. But for me... Internet video is to be avoided if at all possible. 4k Internet video... not even going to try. Maybe if 1080p looks good, someday, 4k might become worth looking into. But as of right now, 1080p over the net looks like pixelated, frame-lagging dog doo... so 4096... no thanks.
+2:
+1 sad, +1 true
As far as I'm concerned, if you wear the hat, you're entitled to the position. The entrepreneur who successfully pulls off multiple roles has hugely outperformed a company that requires a unique person in all of them. And s/he probably has a terrible headache, too, even if s/he loves the work, but that's a separate issue.
Oh, no. No. He should be looking for 'Help me normalize/fix that there database'
Much more erudite presentation, start to finish. Recommended by Dale Earnhardt, so it must be fast, too.
Burn him! Burn him now! Then throw him in the pond and see if he floats! Because he might be made of... wood... or be a duck...
One of his Googling failures turned me into a Newt!
I... got better...
Impressive. Still... all that, and you still haven't mastered the possessive tense.
No, that doesn't solve the problem. With distance comes additional wave peaks; any one of them can occlude the view. All you'd get would be a sharp photo of the intervening wavefront. Not the boom. It more depends on the height above the water of the camera when the photo was taken. Which in turn shouldn't be a huge problem -- it isn't like the photographers will be out there in canoes.
I suspect there's something going on here - some damage that occurred, or an injury - that they're trying to prevent from recurring. It's vaguely possible they're covering something up... perhaps the state of wildlife at the booms, or collection of heavier crude around the booms... but since you can take perfectly horrific shots on the beaches, I just don't see what the benefit to them would be to try and cover up those kinds of things, so I tend to doubt it.
Utter nonsense, without reason or objective fact to back it up. We get *nothing* back when he says anything; we lose *nothing* when I say anything. Losses and gains are made at levels we cannot affect: In the legislature and the high courts.
Look, if you don't believe me, one option is data gathering. Just go start an argument with a cop over one of the (many, many) injustices the "justice" system perpetrates through them and with their collusion. For instance, light up a pipe full of hash while you explain to them that it's a personal choice, it's victimless, and neither the state or the fed have the right to tell you not to do it in or on your own property. Or buy some chemical glassware without getting the right permits first, explaining that you just want to teach your kid basic chemistry. Or try to sell your body, explaining to the nice officer that it's yours, not his or anyone else's, and you will decide what you will and will not do for remuneration, whether it be digging ditches, rowing boats, or pumping his granny full of warm spooge if she's got $20 and wants said service, rather than a boat rowed. Or give 'em a good argument about privacy while sending emails back and forth that contain instructions on how to build a nuclear weapon.
See how that works out for you. And I feel bad for even suggesting that, because I know you're going to come out of such a confrontation with your butt in a sling, a far worse outcome than you really deserve for simply being naive. But unfortunately, that really is how the system works. You can save yourself some pain here, because I'm going to tell you the results beforehand: They'll crush you like a bug.
And I'll listen to you say it, and agree that you have every bit of my support in that you should be able to say so. But I know that you are facing powers far greater than anything you can bring to bear, and I won't participate in any lost causes. You're a flaming optimist in my estimation; I see absolutely no way you, or we, can "take the country back." We do not have the numbers; we do not have the weapons; we do not have a place to stand a defend (and make no mistake, you will need such a concrete thing);
I should also mention that I'm a martial artist of many decades, and a weapons (small arms, edged weapons, and striking weapons) expert. When I tell you it isn't going to work, I'm talking the whole gamut: Strategy, tactics, practical issues of supply, manpower, and community support. Not. Going. To. Happen. This is not the 1700s. If you try to face down the government, they will take you and beat you like a red-headed stepchild. And then they'll hang you up as a demonstration to anyone else with revolutionary ideas. You have no conception of the power they can, and will, wield at the wave of a hand; more than you could arrange for with years of unbroken work, billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of fanatical followers. None of which you have anyway.
That's evidence that you're not paying attention, not that I am incorrect. Nor do you present any reasoning that would show that I am incorrect.
I also assume that I will not be able to fly by flapping my arms; that I will not be able to read your mind no matter how hard I squint; and that sticking my head under a multi-ton press will not stop the press face from reaching the base plate. And I am absolutely right to make such assumptions.
The primary fault with your reasoning is that you think that you can reverse something that has enormous force behind it, by exerting a tiny little bit of pressure. You don't recognize the forces involved in the issue at hand here, literally have failed to identify them, nor have you accurately evaluated the amount and kind of pressure they exert, and so you think that some squabbling in a courtroom will get you somewhere.
As someone who has seen his share of courtrooms and then some, I have learned that fighting the system -- literally trying to say that the law, either in statute or in the person of an officer, is wrong -- is the one sure way to get the system to turn around and demonstrate that it has one hell of a lot more power than the defendant does, regardless of if you are actually correct, or not. I have seen everything from alternate charges (resisting arrest, public nuisance, creating a disturbance, failure to comply with, etc.) pressed to the limit, to outright ridiculous "interpretation" of the letter of the law. Review the reasoning behind the current understanding of the commerce clause to see this writ large; or just read up on police officers enticing people outside their homes so that the yelling they're doing changes from ok, because it's in their home, to a public disturbance because it's one inch outside the door, though still on the porch. Which will, in each and every case, be supported by the court.
A secondary fault is that you think (and truly, I don't know why) that the populace and their elected and appointed servants are rational and will support sensible procedure, rational evaluation, and so forth. I have observed that the population is largely superstitious, bases their ideas upon what they think imaginary entities have told them to do in some book, or an astrological forecast, or in the words of some nitwit in a pulpit; and that this leads them to do the wrong thing both as individuals and en masse. Subsequent to this realization, I have also learned that you cannot change the mindset of these people by providing rational input, because they're not rational in the first place. And the very stronghold of those people? The courts and the legislature. Swear by the bible, sonny; pray before we make law; may "god" bless the American people... ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
The tertiary error you're making is the assumption that the political and justice systems are amenable to you mucking about with the power structure they've created, and that they'll simply let it happen. They won't. Those structures have been very carefully tweaked over the years to benefit a particular class (which you and I are not in, nor will we ever be), and trying to screw with them will get you burned.
Lastly, you should keep in mind that they've created a special place just for you. It's the new(ish) permanent low-class citizen; the one with a criminal record. You won't be able to get a decent job; every word you say in public honestly attached to your name and person will be credited to "convicted felon so-and-so" (which will not, sadly, come with any caveats); you won't be able to establish credit; get insurance; go to school; the list goes on. In addition, you'll be listed on the "offender" list that provides special designation for your particul
Considering that there is zero evidence that there is a "you" once you're dead, I think the argument that it's "your body" is hilarious.
I also think that if you're selfish enough as a living person to plan to deny someone else a working organ they're in need of once you're already dead from unrelated causes, you're really kind of a lowlife.
The only real problem here -- and it is a serious issue -- is that if we allow mining of our dead bodies for reusable parts, as long as it's easier to get them from our bodies (as opposed to an extra-corporeally created organ), the risk exists that someone will make us dead in order to do said mining. So some care is called for.