It's very real and very scary for people of color (as Henry has talked about).
It's not just people of colour. If you walk through certain zones of fans wearing the wrong team colours or speaking with the wrong accent you stand a serious chance of being seriously assaulted, if not killed.
I'm sick of soccer fans. These days, FIFA jerseys have replaced the black/blue/brownshirt.
can't we technically qualify anything as an addiction?
I read recently that the concept of addiction is not a well defined one. One persons addiction is anothers mild indulgence. Frequently addiction is only applied to socially undesireable or prohibited indulgences. For example, despite its frequent use to excess, users of alcohol are rarely described as "addicted", and are instead given a specific label of "alocoholic".
The argument I read traced the origins of the concept of addiction back to the the Enlightenment. Essentially, the author argued that the concept of addiction was a direct successor to the concept of demonic possession. Where previously someone was regarded as being posessed as an explanation for their behaviour, now in the new, rational world, they were described as being "addicted" to a substance or behaviour.
People often tell me I'm addicted to video games. These same people can spend up to six hours a night, three nights a week, consuming alcohol and other substances. Some smoke, some watch an hour of football seven days a week. Some buy dozens of specialist magazines, spend hours on hobbies, go to car shows. Most watch ten times the amount of television I do.
There's always been a question of when an avid interest ends, and an addiction begins. In my expierience, nine times out of ten, it begins in the eye of the beholder.
In the case of Google, MS & Cisco - they should pull the hell out of China - their laws are unreasonable, and no company with a conscience should operate there.
But this kind of raises an interesting question. When a company operates accross many countries, which country's law do they uphold?
Their own.
It is frequently the case nowadays that Multi-national companies are larger and more powerful than nation states. They act accordingly. Local laws are, by and large, adjusted to meet the needs of the company via lobbying, threats of withdrawal, etc. Fines and repayments are similarly dodged. About the only things multinationals are subject to nowadays are corporation taxes, and they usually campaign to see those reduced as well.
While I'm sure we're going to have the inevitable "Apple should withdraw from Scandinavia" posts here, people should really consider that this is a symptom of a wider problem; Apple trying to operate assuming that all legal systems are the same as the US's.
This is a symptom of a wider problem. US companies do tend to assume that US Law is applicable everywhere, and indeed, this view is not restricted to companies. USians do often think that everyone, everywhere is subject to penalties for infractions on their laws or properties. Take the case of McKinnon for example. Many felt his extradition was correct, despite the fact that he is not subject to US law, and that the US armed forces properties overseas do not enjoy any protection under the UK legal system.
Of course, owing to their huge influence, US companies have succeeded to a large degree in making US law the default internationally, paticularly in the business sphere. On the one hand, this is a good thing, as commerce becomes standardised. On the other, it is quite a dangerous thing, as US mores are often exported and imposed on foreign societies.
For example, US mores regarding drugs laws are often applied in foreign countires, often when there is no real problem ariseing from that drugs consumption in the country in question. A prime example of this is marijuana. The drug became illegal in the United States, arguably as a result of a moral panic, and the rest of the world followed suit. In recent years, the drugs illegality has been "toned down" and even reversed somewhat in other nations.
It is often the case that where the US goes, others follow. Given the often conservative nature of US society, this trend often worries me, as mores and standards chosen for a different population are frequently hoist upon my own. It is of course, paticularly worrisome given the increasingly reactionary nature of a substantial portion of a growing number US people.
It needs less server capacity because it doesn't require the entire form to be reloaded constantly.
Depends on what you mean by "capacity". If you're talking about bandwidth capacity, then yes, AJAX can potentially reduce bandwidth. If you're talking about server processing capacity, then the answer is no, AJAX will not reduce server processing loads. AJAX requires more server software, processing, memory and time than simply having the server rejurgitate a static, or quasi static webpage over and over.
And that the game had no ending. A "clif-hanger", as some asshats will call that particular ending, doesn't belong in a $60 video game. It belongs in a weekly TV serial.
I blame Soul Reaver for this recent trend towards unfinished games. But in truth, the first game I came across that did this was Digger T. Rock. You finally completed all the levels, solved every puzzle, got infinite items, no saves whatsoever, defeated all the dragons, and what happens? To be continued. Except it never was. I was pissed. Still am as it happens.
Don't forget some of the other features of EMACS too.
First and foremost, syntax highlighting. I don't know a single program that highlights syntax as well as Emacs. Get your colour scheme right and code won't be the same without it. You can visually "see" the code structure at a glance without even having to read the words. Emacs indenting is also superior, and really helps when making out the overall structure. There's even a code folding option now, so you can finally collapse sections. Very useful at times.
That said, I would only use emacs when browsing individual files. For an overall project structure, something like doxygen is the way to go. If only Firefox had an Emacs plugin, you could get the best of both!!!
I buy chinese goods and goods made with Chinese labor all the time and so do you if you work in IT.
But neither of us go around claiming that out motto is "Don't be evil" and claim to hold ourselves to high moral standards. That's the distinction here. That's why Google is getting more flak on this issue than Microsoft, Yahoo and especially Cisco. They claim to have high principles, but in the end, they sold out like everyone else in the worst possible way. Yet people still try and defend them by claiming they're "just doing business". It's like this, they can either "just do business", or take a moral high ground. They can't do both.
If Google was an arms dealer sealing tanks to China to roll over dissidents, I'd be more inclined to your indignation. I have a very hard time feeling sympathy for blocked web pages. It's just Not That Important.
The 1980's just called. They want their point of view back. The internet is a lot more important than you think. Why web pages should be given less protection than, say, printed media, is beyond me. Would you think that the censoring of pamphlets or the burning of books is an important issue? What then, is the fundamental distinction between these actions and blocking webpages?
Internet censorship is a very important issue. It's argueably more important than censorship of traditional print media, as to censoring the internet restricts more sources of information and points of view than all the other mediums combined. If unrestricted net access was allowed in China, communist rule would disintegrate within 36 months, and they know this. The party is censoring the internet. You've got to ask yourself why, and why it's so important they should not be allowed to.
If you feel the need to blame anyone, blame the dictators. Google is just doing business.
And before this discussion degenerates into WWII analogies, remember that Google is just a damn search engine and what's being repressed are just frigging web pages. No human is being abused or tortured by Google's actions.
Just doing business. Only following orders. Caught up with the mob. It's only the Communists. Too young to know better. To old to think straight. How many other excuses are there?
Bottom Line. Google are in bed with those dictators. Sure, maybe not every night of the week, but most nights. They're making money by colluding with a totalitarian state. No amount of excuses, handwringing, poignant apologies or clever excuses is going to change this fact.
If Google could not make money in China, they would never have sacraficed their oh so precious principles. But when faced with the mountains of riches on offer to them by simply caving into demands contrary to their stated values, they caved. Oh how they caved. They sold the good ship "Don't be evil" up the river and set sail for the high seas of profit, to return holds bursting with yuan and Party contacts. They caved, caved hard.
You want to keep making excuses for them, fine. While you're at it, make some excuses for arms dealers that sell to "choppn' off heads n' shit" third world dictators. Make some more for companies that forced bonded labourers and their children to toil for the sake of business. And don't forget to make some for yourself.
The plain truth is as people get older, their abilities drop. I'm now 37. I know I'm less intelligent than when I was 20.....My emotions are changing also. I am now more selfish than before and I view myself with more importance than before.
Considering that the Russian police have investigated them before and not filed any charges, it seems to imply that the Russian authorities feel that it's legal.
They don't just feel it's legal. Simply put "AllofMp3 Makes Russia Strong".
It works two ways. One, less expensive overly priced CDs are imported into Russia. Two, large amounts of foregin cash is brought into Russia via the sale of the MP3s to overseas customers.
Until Russia has an international music industry on par with the US, it does not make sense to accept WIPO doctrine on this matter. Any Russian government that does so would be in deriliction of its duty. Neither does it make sense for any other country to do so either.
I would hope that AllOfMyMP3 would be sending money not only to the artists but TO THE PEOPLE WHO SPENT MONEY TO PUT THE ARTISTS WHERE THEY ARE, i.e. the aforementioned producers, studio engineers, studio musicians, and so forth.
Yeah! Why shouldn't the Middleman get a slice of the action?! Why should we cut him out?!
Not based on a hydrodynamic simulation; just a wild ass guess on their part.
Fluid dynamics, particularly on such a massive scale as storms on a planet like Jupiter, is still largely a matter of wild ass "guess"timates. With good reason.
The basic equations of fluid mechanics, the Navier-Stokes equations, are a second order, non-linear system of partial differential equations. Atmospheric gases are also compressible flows. Couple this with aerosols, rotation of the planet, and mondo awkward boundary conditions due to the surface curvature; it's lack of a crust; and the lack of a defined "end" of the atmosphere, finally sprinkling a generous dose of chaos theory in to account for sensitivity to initial conditions.... and you've got a problem that is to all intents and purposes, completely unsolvable.
And that's "just" the fluid dynamics problem. And the continuum hypothesis isn't the only way to solve it. You could use Lagrangian mechanics if one were so inclined.
And these are just theoretical issues. We haven't even spoken about the practical difficulties. First and foremost, throw hope for an analytic solution out the window, because it's not going to happen. You've got to go with a numerical solution. Which brings up the next question of which numerical techniques to you use, and how accurately do you use them. You've got to factor in time, cost and cpu ability. You'll have to parrallelise the whole deal, and make sure it's accurate enough to remain stable for long enough to predict but you want but quick enough so that you'll get your answer before the actual event happens.
And last, but by no means least, once you've got that data, how do you analyse it? How do you even present it? Remember, we're talking about 3d vortices here, embedded in a globe. How do you make sense of it all. What points are of interest? What events are key? What can you learn from all this? What size font should the image titles have? How will you make a paper out of all this!?
Faced with such an operation, you're often better off performing a simulation when faced with a fluid mechanics problem, or in the case where simulation is impossible such as with Jupiter, just make a wild assed guess, sit back and enjoy the show.
That statement assumes a level of sheepleness that simply does not exist in the real world. If it did, we would not have something like 100 denominations of Christianity, some number of Jewish sects, two or three major Bhuddist splits, I don't know how many minor variations on the two major Islamic sects, animal worship, sun worship, etc. ad nauseum.
Man has also invented and still produces thousands of different types of stimulants, narcotics and other recreational drugs. Would you say this belies man's deep seated need to be sober. People follow their religion because that is what they have been taught to do. It has nothing to do with questioning mans' relationship with deities or the universe, because if it did, religion would be in flux, like science. This is most certainly not the case. Religious followers, on the whole, stick rigidly to their dogmas and never question them.
We are peasants who need to be ruled, not citizens who govern.
What really bothers me is that, despite what we might like to be the case, history has borne out this fact. Most human beings who have lived, have lived under the boot of some warlord/king/dictator of some kind. What's more, many of them lived happily under that boot.
Sometimes I wonder if the human race is predisposed to living under tyrannies, and if decomcracy is just a blip, a temporary anomaly in the long story of human servitude.
While I'm sure Dubya would accept and even applaud this argument, most actual believers would find this troubling.
Most actual believers will believe and accept what they are told to believe and accept. And they will like it. And they will like making you accept it too.
I could dance around about how im running linux etc, but the fact of the matter is even people running windows XP can avoid this, by : Yes thats right, NOT patching. I mean how do they expect to force anything on anyone using a computer?
Crow all you want subversive! Pretty soon the forces of justice will arrive to haul you and all your communist buddies off to eastern european jails where your anus will be subject to arbitrary photographing. We won't tolerate such wanton economic terrorism inducement from the like of you.
In the long run, mathematics really needs considerably more formality than it is using now....
No, no and no. What mathematics needs is to escape from the rigid and inflexible formality that has been holding it back for the last 80 years.
Frankly, many mathematical topics have become so obfusacted that their transition from theory to application has been made nigh impossible. This is accomplished through the procedure of precise, immaculate, terse and above all convoluted definitions and theorems. Oh, and no pictures. I've seen books on topology completely devoid of diagrams. Thank you Bourbaki.
Simple mathematical concepts have become clouded by a fog of unnessesary cruft. The beauty and power of mathematics is being lost to serile exactness. It's holding progress back, and it needs to be stopped.
In other words, "It's not a crime if you don't get caught."
No subtlely differnt. It's not a crime if the victim doesn't notice. You can still get caught, just make sure they never find out.
Most government crimes occur in this way. People find out what's going on, but no one is brought to justice. Instead, the whole operation is shut down, and the powers that be do their utmost to make sure the victims remain ignorent.
So in short, the FBI can install X-10 cams in your bathroom and walk away scott free if you never find the bug. Enjoy what's left of your democracy.
Studies into this kind of thing are a bad idea. Such a thing as "violent tendencies" tends to be fairly subjectivly measured. For example, what might be considered normal in a male, might constitute "violent tendencies" in a female.
When it comes to video game violence, no doubt increased adrenaline levels will be seen as justification for an outright ban. Despite the fact that such levels could probably be seen after watching a football game.
What we are seeing here is a classic moral panic. Irrational fears, spiced with only superfically valid arguments, delivered by a hysterical media coverage, all combines to give you... prohibition. And we all know how well that one went down.
People like this do not need to be fed studies and test, surveys and psychology tests. That would feed the troll. These people need to be called what they are. Scaremongers. They need to be publically laughed at, not listened to.
Slashdot Mirror
Brin said these words as a group of stockholders stood behind him holding a shotgun and several cattle prods
All while dancing, nubile imperial concubines and heavy sacks of pristine tea leaves and silk dangled seductively directly in front of the podium.
It's very real and very scary for people of color (as Henry has talked about).
It's not just people of colour. If you walk through certain zones of fans wearing the wrong team colours or speaking with the wrong accent you stand a serious chance of being seriously assaulted, if not killed.
I'm sick of soccer fans. These days, FIFA jerseys have replaced the black/blue/brownshirt.
can't we technically qualify anything as an addiction?
I read recently that the concept of addiction is not a well defined one. One persons addiction is anothers mild indulgence. Frequently addiction is only applied to socially undesireable or prohibited indulgences. For example, despite its frequent use to excess, users of alcohol are rarely described as "addicted", and are instead given a specific label of "alocoholic".
The argument I read traced the origins of the concept of addiction back to the the Enlightenment. Essentially, the author argued that the concept of addiction was a direct successor to the concept of demonic possession. Where previously someone was regarded as being posessed as an explanation for their behaviour, now in the new, rational world, they were described as being "addicted" to a substance or behaviour.
People often tell me I'm addicted to video games. These same people can spend up to six hours a night, three nights a week, consuming alcohol and other substances. Some smoke, some watch an hour of football seven days a week. Some buy dozens of specialist magazines, spend hours on hobbies, go to car shows. Most watch ten times the amount of television I do.
There's always been a question of when an avid interest ends, and an addiction begins. In my expierience, nine times out of ten, it begins in the eye of the beholder.
In the case of Google, MS & Cisco - they should pull the hell out of China - their laws are unreasonable, and no company with a conscience should operate there.
Oh wait....
But this kind of raises an interesting question. When a company operates accross many countries, which country's law do they uphold?
Their own.
It is frequently the case nowadays that Multi-national companies are larger and more powerful than nation states. They act accordingly. Local laws are, by and large, adjusted to meet the needs of the company via lobbying, threats of withdrawal, etc. Fines and repayments are similarly dodged. About the only things multinationals are subject to nowadays are corporation taxes, and they usually campaign to see those reduced as well.
While I'm sure we're going to have the inevitable "Apple should withdraw from Scandinavia" posts here, people should really consider that this is a symptom of a wider problem; Apple trying to operate assuming that all legal systems are the same as the US's.
This is a symptom of a wider problem. US companies do tend to assume that US Law is applicable everywhere, and indeed, this view is not restricted to companies. USians do often think that everyone, everywhere is subject to penalties for infractions on their laws or properties. Take the case of McKinnon for example. Many felt his extradition was correct, despite the fact that he is not subject to US law, and that the US armed forces properties overseas do not enjoy any protection under the UK legal system.
Of course, owing to their huge influence, US companies have succeeded to a large degree in making US law the default internationally, paticularly in the business sphere. On the one hand, this is a good thing, as commerce becomes standardised. On the other, it is quite a dangerous thing, as US mores are often exported and imposed on foreign societies.
For example, US mores regarding drugs laws are often applied in foreign countires, often when there is no real problem ariseing from that drugs consumption in the country in question. A prime example of this is marijuana. The drug became illegal in the United States, arguably as a result of a moral panic, and the rest of the world followed suit. In recent years, the drugs illegality has been "toned down" and even reversed somewhat in other nations.
It is often the case that where the US goes, others follow. Given the often conservative nature of US society, this trend often worries me, as mores and standards chosen for a different population are frequently hoist upon my own. It is of course, paticularly worrisome given the increasingly reactionary nature of a substantial portion of a growing number US people.
It needs less server capacity because it doesn't require the entire form to be reloaded constantly.
Depends on what you mean by "capacity". If you're talking about bandwidth capacity, then yes, AJAX can potentially reduce bandwidth. If you're talking about server processing capacity, then the answer is no, AJAX will not reduce server processing loads. AJAX requires more server software, processing, memory and time than simply having the server rejurgitate a static, or quasi static webpage over and over.
And that the game had no ending. A "clif-hanger", as some asshats will call that particular ending, doesn't belong in a $60 video game. It belongs in a weekly TV serial.
I blame Soul Reaver for this recent trend towards unfinished games. But in truth, the first game I came across that did this was Digger T. Rock. You finally completed all the levels, solved every puzzle, got infinite items, no saves whatsoever, defeated all the dragons, and what happens? To be continued. Except it never was. I was pissed. Still am as it happens.
Don't forget some of the other features of EMACS too.
First and foremost, syntax highlighting. I don't know a single program that highlights syntax as well as Emacs. Get your colour scheme right and code won't be the same without it. You can visually "see" the code structure at a glance without even having to read the words. Emacs indenting is also superior, and really helps when making out the overall structure. There's even a code folding option now, so you can finally collapse sections. Very useful at times.
That said, I would only use emacs when browsing individual files. For an overall project structure, something like doxygen is the way to go. If only Firefox had an Emacs plugin, you could get the best of both!!!
I buy chinese goods and goods made with Chinese labor all the time and so do you if you work in IT.
But neither of us go around claiming that out motto is "Don't be evil" and claim to hold ourselves to high moral standards. That's the distinction here. That's why Google is getting more flak on this issue than Microsoft, Yahoo and especially Cisco. They claim to have high principles, but in the end, they sold out like everyone else in the worst possible way. Yet people still try and defend them by claiming they're "just doing business". It's like this, they can either "just do business", or take a moral high ground. They can't do both.
If Google was an arms dealer sealing tanks to China to roll over dissidents, I'd be more inclined to your indignation. I have a very hard time feeling sympathy for blocked web pages. It's just Not That Important.
The 1980's just called. They want their point of view back. The internet is a lot more important than you think. Why web pages should be given less protection than, say, printed media, is beyond me. Would you think that the censoring of pamphlets or the burning of books is an important issue? What then, is the fundamental distinction between these actions and blocking webpages?
Internet censorship is a very important issue. It's argueably more important than censorship of traditional print media, as to censoring the internet restricts more sources of information and points of view than all the other mediums combined. If unrestricted net access was allowed in China, communist rule would disintegrate within 36 months, and they know this. The party is censoring the internet. You've got to ask yourself why, and why it's so important they should not be allowed to.
If you feel the need to blame anyone, blame the dictators. Google is just doing business.
And before this discussion degenerates into WWII analogies, remember that Google is just a damn search engine and what's being repressed are just frigging web pages. No human is being abused or tortured by Google's actions.
Just doing business. Only following orders. Caught up with the mob. It's only the Communists. Too young to know better. To old to think straight. How many other excuses are there?
Bottom Line. Google are in bed with those dictators. Sure, maybe not every night of the week, but most nights. They're making money by colluding with a totalitarian state. No amount of excuses, handwringing, poignant apologies or clever excuses is going to change this fact.
If Google could not make money in China, they would never have sacraficed their oh so precious principles. But when faced with the mountains of riches on offer to them by simply caving into demands contrary to their stated values, they caved. Oh how they caved. They sold the good ship "Don't be evil" up the river and set sail for the high seas of profit, to return holds bursting with yuan and Party contacts. They caved, caved hard.
You want to keep making excuses for them, fine. While you're at it, make some excuses for arms dealers that sell to "choppn' off heads n' shit" third world dictators. Make some more for companies that forced bonded labourers and their children to toil for the sake of business. And don't forget to make some for yourself.
The plain truth is as people get older, their abilities drop. I'm now 37. I know I'm less intelligent than when I was 20.....My emotions are changing also. I am now more selfish than before and I view myself with more importance than before.
Must have been bitten by a Republican.
Considering that the Russian police have investigated them before and not filed any charges, it seems to imply that the Russian authorities feel that it's legal.
They don't just feel it's legal. Simply put "AllofMp3 Makes Russia Strong".
It works two ways. One, less expensive overly priced CDs are imported into Russia. Two, large amounts of foregin cash is brought into Russia via the sale of the MP3s to overseas customers.
Until Russia has an international music industry on par with the US, it does not make sense to accept WIPO doctrine on this matter. Any Russian government that does so would be in deriliction of its duty. Neither does it make sense for any other country to do so either.
I would hope that AllOfMyMP3 would be sending money not only to the artists but TO THE PEOPLE WHO SPENT MONEY TO PUT THE ARTISTS WHERE THEY ARE, i.e. the aforementioned producers, studio engineers, studio musicians, and so forth.
Yeah! Why shouldn't the Middleman get a slice of the action?! Why should we cut him out?!
Oh Wait....
That's like saying if you rent a dvd, you should be able to give them money, but when you return the dvd, they should also return your money...
You've clearly never rented Titanic.
Not based on a hydrodynamic simulation; just a wild ass guess on their part.
Fluid dynamics, particularly on such a massive scale as storms on a planet like Jupiter, is still largely a matter of wild ass "guess"timates. With good reason.
The basic equations of fluid mechanics, the Navier-Stokes equations, are a second order, non-linear system of partial differential equations. Atmospheric gases are also compressible flows. Couple this with aerosols, rotation of the planet, and mondo awkward boundary conditions due to the surface curvature; it's lack of a crust; and the lack of a defined "end" of the atmosphere, finally sprinkling a generous dose of chaos theory in to account for sensitivity to initial conditions.... and you've got a problem that is to all intents and purposes, completely unsolvable.
And that's "just" the fluid dynamics problem. And the continuum hypothesis isn't the only way to solve it. You could use Lagrangian mechanics if one were so inclined.
And these are just theoretical issues. We haven't even spoken about the practical difficulties. First and foremost, throw hope for an analytic solution out the window, because it's not going to happen. You've got to go with a numerical solution. Which brings up the next question of which numerical techniques to you use, and how accurately do you use them. You've got to factor in time, cost and cpu ability. You'll have to parrallelise the whole deal, and make sure it's accurate enough to remain stable for long enough to predict but you want but quick enough so that you'll get your answer before the actual event happens.
And last, but by no means least, once you've got that data, how do you analyse it? How do you even present it? Remember, we're talking about 3d vortices here, embedded in a globe. How do you make sense of it all. What points are of interest? What events are key? What can you learn from all this? What size font should the image titles have? How will you make a paper out of all this!?
Faced with such an operation, you're often better off performing a simulation when faced with a fluid mechanics problem, or in the case where simulation is impossible such as with Jupiter, just make a wild assed guess, sit back and enjoy the show.
That statement assumes a level of sheepleness that simply does not exist in the real world. If it did, we would not have something like 100 denominations of Christianity, some number of Jewish sects, two or three major Bhuddist splits, I don't know how many minor variations on the two major Islamic sects, animal worship, sun worship, etc. ad nauseum.
Man has also invented and still produces thousands of different types of stimulants, narcotics and other recreational drugs. Would you say this belies man's deep seated need to be sober. People follow their religion because that is what they have been taught to do. It has nothing to do with questioning mans' relationship with deities or the universe, because if it did, religion would be in flux, like science. This is most certainly not the case. Religious followers, on the whole, stick rigidly to their dogmas and never question them.
We are peasants who need to be ruled, not citizens who govern.
What really bothers me is that, despite what we might like to be the case, history has borne out this fact. Most human beings who have lived, have lived under the boot of some warlord/king/dictator of some kind. What's more, many of them lived happily under that boot.
Sometimes I wonder if the human race is predisposed to living under tyrannies, and if decomcracy is just a blip, a temporary anomaly in the long story of human servitude.
On one hand, you're right to privacy is being eroded, on the other hand, I really want them to find people who are planning attacks on my country.
I really want them to find alien life. You don't see me offering up my human rights to get it done.
While I'm sure Dubya would accept and even applaud this argument, most actual believers would find this troubling.
Most actual believers will believe and accept what they are told to believe and accept. And they will like it. And they will like making you accept it too.
Never underestimate the power of faith.
Considering that most slashdotters are likely unable to run at 5kmph, let alone swim that fast, I think any mass panic is largely justified.
I could dance around about how im running linux etc, but the fact of the matter is even people running windows XP can avoid this, by : Yes thats right, NOT patching. I mean how do they expect to force anything on anyone using a computer?
Crow all you want subversive! Pretty soon the forces of justice will arrive to haul you and all your communist buddies off to eastern european jails where your anus will be subject to arbitrary photographing. We won't tolerate such wanton economic terrorism inducement from the like of you.
Long live Freedom!
In the long run, mathematics really needs considerably more formality than it is using now....
No, no and no. What mathematics needs is to escape from the rigid and inflexible formality that has been holding it back for the last 80 years.
Frankly, many mathematical topics have become so obfusacted that their transition from theory to application has been made nigh impossible. This is accomplished through the procedure of precise, immaculate, terse and above all convoluted definitions and theorems. Oh, and no pictures. I've seen books on topology completely devoid of diagrams. Thank you Bourbaki.
Simple mathematical concepts have become clouded by a fog of unnessesary cruft. The beauty and power of mathematics is being lost to serile exactness. It's holding progress back, and it needs to be stopped.
In other words, "It's not a crime if you don't get caught."
No subtlely differnt. It's not a crime if the victim doesn't notice. You can still get caught, just make sure they never find out.
Most government crimes occur in this way. People find out what's going on, but no one is brought to justice. Instead, the whole operation is shut down, and the powers that be do their utmost to make sure the victims remain ignorent.
So in short, the FBI can install X-10 cams in your bathroom and walk away scott free if you never find the bug. Enjoy what's left of your democracy.
Studies into this kind of thing are a bad idea. Such a thing as "violent tendencies" tends to be fairly subjectivly measured. For example, what might be considered normal in a male, might constitute "violent tendencies" in a female.
When it comes to video game violence, no doubt increased adrenaline levels will be seen as justification for an outright ban. Despite the fact that such levels could probably be seen after watching a football game.
What we are seeing here is a classic moral panic. Irrational fears, spiced with only superfically valid arguments, delivered by a hysterical media coverage, all combines to give you... prohibition. And we all know how well that one went down.
People like this do not need to be fed studies and test, surveys and psychology tests. That would feed the troll. These people need to be called what they are. Scaremongers. They need to be publically laughed at, not listened to.