Amazing how the mods will go with the GP's (incorrect) take on things rather than take the 800 milliseconds necessary to see for themselves that it was not a "Troll" post, as it is currently modded. Carelessness 1, High-quality Moderation 0. Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
I agree with everything you said, except 800ms is a bit short. I would say about 20 seconds, if you include the time to backtrack to the main page, click the link, wait for the website to load, and skim it for the relevant quote (which is the first question in the list). It could take up to a minute if they are slower readers -- we can't assume everyone reads as fast as we do.
Still, moderators should read the article before using their points if they're going to mod articles that reference the article's content. Now if it's just "First post!" or "ch34p v!4gr4" posts, then by all means...:\
It was immediately obvious to me that you were providing context. I have not read the article and it was not necessary for me to do so in order to know your intent. If anything, 800ms is generous but it accounts for people who are slow readers.
You've got it backwards. She was providing context, not removing it. The original full quote was:
"We will typically focus on High and Critical impact bugs, but any clever vulnerability at any severity might get a reward."
Amazing how the mods will go with the GP's (incorrect) take on things rather than take the 800 milliseconds necessary to see for themselves that it was not a "Troll" post, as it is currently modded. Carelessness 1, High-quality Moderation 0. Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
I don't know if you are an arrogant Mac user or a Pompous Linux Guru, but you have to realize that the vulnerabilties in Windows do not make the FUNDAMENTAL vulnerabilities in other systems go away.
If Microsoft folded up shop tomorrow and the only Machine you could get at a big store was a Mac, one of two things would happen. Either
A) More and more viruses would pop up for Macintoshes. And yes, there are some, so don't try and deny that. Or
B) Macs, being locked into a very specific hardware set would have to adopt a more open policy (opening more holes) or It would cause some serious stagnation in the producers of other computer parts - completely ruining all competition and slowing all progress.
And if everyone were using Linux, it would be just the same as before. Everyone would be Sudo'ing this and that and hackers will exploit any setup the user uses to make their PC Easier.
You need someone like Microsoft to be the scapegoat for the idiot masses so that more secure systems can even exist.
Microsoft is just catering to a need. The "need" is that people want to use technologies and networks without understanding what they are using or at least learning about their correct use. So long as people think this is a great idea and refuse to invest a little time learning about the tools they use every day, the security situation is not going to improve. I'm actually fine with this; people who fall for phishing attempts and the like are merely getting out of the system what they were willing to put into it. It concerns me that this is not a technological problem but technical solutions are being proposed for it. Those can only have the effect of restricting the free and open network that is available today for anyone who wants to learn how to use it.
... everyone on here seems to think the secrecy must be because the government is worried about "the public" finding out about horrific terms. That seems unlikely--remember, IP law doesn't even make the top ten of most US voters' important issues.
Does it occur to you that perhaps they are trying to keep it that way?
The more visible copyright becomes, the more it gets discussed in media, and the more it becomes a well-known "issue" the more likely it is that there will be demand for reform. That's not what the interests behind it want.
One of my problems with regulation is that big business actually welcomes it. Why do you suppose that is?
Because they still pay off the people who write the regulations.
That isn't a complete sentence. The complete sentence would be, "because they still pay off the people who write the regulations and for some reason we put up with this." Sheep need a shepherd.
Like I said, 'packaging'. (Marketing packaging, legal packaging, intellectual property packaging, etc).
When you say "packaging" and the explanation has nothing to do with the commonly-understood definition of "packaging", just extend the meaning of the word so that you are always right! That will fool everyone!
Not printer ink, this is about outsourcing. Printer ink costs a lot because of the pretty packaging.
I disagree with that, though I am sure the packaging is also a factor. Liquid printer ink (i.e. for ink jets) costs so much because the printers are sold as cheaply as possible, at a very low margin and maybe even at a loss. The company then hopes to make that profit back by selling overprices consumables. Laser printers don't use this model. This is why when you buy a laser printer, you pay significantly more money up-front for the printer itself and thereafter you can purchase cheap consumables that more closely reflect the actual cost of producing toner.
Without altering its meaning, this can be rephrased as, "my perspective is different from yours, therefore yours is horseshit." How nice, you've elected yourself the arbiter of validity on a matter of opinion.
I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational.
I'm fond of the way Samuel Clemens summed it up: "I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education." If you are able to pursue knowledge and understanding for its own sake, on your own when no one is looking, because it enriches your life, you have found a much purer guiding principle than appeasing a professor, making a grade, or obtaining a job. If you cannot do these things or cannot do them effectively outside of an institution and hierarchical authority structure, then what sort of student are you? If you can and are doing these things on your own and take personal responsibility for your own education, knowing that no one has your interests at heart quite like you do, then the only thing left to prove to any employer is that you are not too much of a wolf, that you can also play the sheep who can follow orders.
It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?
A decent mentor will teach you what he knows and will probably enjoy feeling like someone is dependent on their guidance. It's a common way of feeling self-important. A great mentor will show you that you are capable of teaching yourself and will equip you to be your own mentor.
CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume.
That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.
That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.
College is about having goals, meeting deadlines, and dealing well (i.e. obediently) with authority figures, your willingness to allow them to determine the use of your time, your ability to follow their detailed instructions, and your willingness to be a cog in a large institution. Those are the qualifications employers find desirable. They likely know that in this industry, a degree does not necessarily indicate skill or ability and that many of the most skilled developers and technicians never went to college. What they do know is that it demonstrates you are willing and able to jump through hoops of the sort that they find useful.
It wasn't. It's like an AC said in a different discussion; the mod disagreed with him but did not have the intellectual capacity to construct a counter-argument.
If the more trigger-happy mods have an axe to grind and want to waste points, mod me down. Right now. I dare you. I have more karma than I need and would rather you mod me down than use your points where it would actually matter. Maybe I should have omitted that last sentence since it might make you reconsider doing it.
Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.
I heard of a case in which a store was selling "Y2K compatible" flashlights. The person who saw this couldn't tell if it was "stupid marketing or clever marketing aimed at stupid people".
It is unfortunate that dollars obtained from stupid people are just as green and spend just as well as money obtained from those who make intelligent purchasing decisions. Does this alone not explain modern marketing?
Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally.
As compared to what? Martians?
This is a world wide problem, so I don't see what culture you're comparing to.
Are you taking this to be a Western problem? If so, could you outline what other cultures you find to be more forward-looking?
Thanks,
Peter
I will answer your question with another question. Do you require a tangible, external counter-example before you are able to realize what is wrong with something? Or can you view our general lack of foresight and preparedness as an addressable problem in its own right, whether or not some "other" also manifests the same problem?
My comment was not about the superiority or inferiority of Western culture when compared to some other. If my comment were about that, I would have specified two distinct cultures. I didn't because I frankly have no interest in such pissing contests. They are for weak people who want to feel better about themselves by means of a group identity; they are not for individuals. If you have a personal sensitivity to that subject that causes you to perceive it whether or not I actually made such a comparison, it is not related to anything I have said. I do not mean that maliciously and I hope you can understand that this is a natural response to the petty concerns you are asking me to indulge and legitimize.
What you would call different "cultures" may speak different languages, celebrate different holidays, eat different foods, and have different religious beliefs, but there is little diversity when it comes to statecraft. A panicky population that is reacting with fear to a crisis is much easier to rule whether that population is Western, Eastern, or any other. In that one sense, we all share a sort of culture. That is why it's a world-wide problem.
Why? He's right. When a problem is right on top of you, it's very easy to quantify.
Yes I know the saying, "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". But it doesn't work that way. It's hard to quantify a problem that's years in the future, so preventions tend to be financially wasteful.
Note that I specifically (and plainly) said problems which are predictable and inevitable. By definition, these are not difficult to quantify. This is why attention to detail, good reading comprehension, or whatever you prefer to call it is important. Sorry but I see this mistake all the time and it's a careless one.
At any rate, Aesop had it right. The ant had a much easier time than did the grasshopper.
Lao Tzu had it right as well. To paraphrase, every large and difficult-to-solve problem was once a small problem that could have been easily solved. Once realized, the only limit to the application of this principle is whether you have the fine perception necessary to notice a problem while it is in its early stages and nip it in the bud before it blossoms. What I was saying before is that government does not grok this principle because it doesn't want to; it has no such incentive. That is, it's unreasonable to expect an amoral organization to willingly take any action that would result in less money and power for that organization. Government is unfortunately no exception.
It's hard to institute a Federal Reserve system if there is no Great Depression. It's hard to pass a law like the Patriot Act if there is no September 11th attack. It's hard to justify warrantless wiretapping if there is no bogeyman around every corner. The term for the technique is the Hegelian Dialectic, aka "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis," aka "Problem, Reaction, Solution."
What will happen will be the standard that us humans have followed throughout the ages.
We will wait until the IPv4 addresses run out and then force businesses to start using IPv6 if they want to get on the internet.
There will be a temporary boon for networking manufacturers as companies will have to change their equipment
As a side curiosity, I wonder how many public IPv4 IPs are actually in use.
Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.
My own beliefs are also strongly influenced by Libertarian philosophy, though I am not inclined to derive any aspect of my identity from simplistic labels. Thus, I don't call myself a Libertarian because I reserve the right to differ from their stated positions.
I recognize three roles that are legitimate purposes of government. Any legitimate authority government has derives from its service of these three things: defense, law enforcement, and public works. Anything else is an overextension and is likely to be blatant tyranny.
Defense consists of the just use of the military to offer armed resistance to national enemies. I strongly agree with Thomas Paine who said "not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder". An example of the legitimate use of defense would be a foreign army aggressively invading Ameican soil. I don't personally recognize as valid the use of flimsy excuses to justify the use of force to interfere with other sovereign nations.
The correct purpose of law enforcement is to prevent one citizen from using force or fraud to deprive any other citizens of their life, their freedom, or their property. It is not valid to use this power to micromanage the lives of people based on some idea of what's good for them. That includes the carrot-and-stick methods of income taxation. I believe that consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want, so long as their actions do not impact unwilling participants. So if someone wants to sit at home and smoke crack all day, that is unfortunate and I hope they obtain a higher concept of themselves, but it is not my job to tell them how they should live. However, if they rob other people to pay for their crack habit the government has an obligation to lock them up because they are using force to deprive another person of property. The reason why they did so is immaterial.
Public works usually includes things like roads and bridges. I have no problem with this also including the funding of scientific research, because everyone benefits from those advances just like everyone benefits from well-maintained roads. Additionally, much "pure research" is not expected to generate a profit in the foreseeable future so by its very nature it would not do well in the marketplace.
Wealthy people and corporations do not pay up much under the current "progressive" income tax system. The real private wealth in this country is largely held by old-money families. It is inherited and it is invested and otherwise it is unearned income. There are many methods of avoiding even the capital gains tax. The only reason to have an income tax is because it lets you use carrot-and-stick methods to financially reward and punish certain behaviors in order to manipulate people. Otherwise, an income tax is the least efficient and most easily cheated form of taxation in existence.
Corporations do not really pay taxes. Yes, they have a tax rate and yes they send a check to the government to pay that tax. But they rightly consider taxes as a cost of doing business, and as such, it is one factor determining how much they charge for goods and services. If you raise the corporate income tax, the corporation will charge more to its customers to compensate. Its competitors will have to absorb the same cost so competition will not eliminate this. When you pay for goods, about 22% of what you pay is a hidden, embedded cost that comes directly from the income tax on the corporation. For services, it's slightly higher. Corporations don't pay taxes so much as they pass them on and act as collection agents for the government.
The Fair Tax would throw out the income tax entirely, eliminate the IRS, and replace them with a national sales tax. This sales tax has a built-in rebate to guarantee it does not apply to the basic necessities of life, reducing its impact on poor people. As a consumption tax, it does not punish the earning of
I guess that also makes you a right-wing extremist or an anarcho-libertarian. Isn't that what they call anyone who wants a minimal federal government that derives all of its authority and purpose from a literal, strict reading of the Constitution?
The Libertarians would also sell off our roads to the Chinese despite the Constitution calling for federal regulation of them, so you'll need to find some other name for people wanting a literal reading of the Constitution (like "strict constructionist")
My whole point was that the labels were not being used correctly. You are merely reiterating my point. It sometimes surprises me that people can feel such a need to do this that the redundancy of it does not deter them.
Having said that, it's my personal belief that the truest Libertarians were the Founding Fathers. Today's Libertarian Party as a political organization can either follow in those footsteps or it can fail to do so, but that does not concern me as an individual. Although, I personally do not know of anyone identifying themselves as Libertarian who advocates having the government take actions that are blatantly illegal under the Constitution. That would be like people who refer to themselves as (i.e.) Christian and then do things that clearly contradict the tenets of Christianity. They can say whatever they want, but they are still engaging in hypocrisy.
If there are self-described "Libertarians" who want to sell public roads to China, they certainly do not represent all Libertarians. Most Libertarian thinkers I have ever heard from are quite the opposite; they believe many of today's problems are caused by the government exceeding its authority and engaging in behaviors that are either unconstitutional or questionably constitutional.
Like any other philosophy that would radically and favorably alter the status quo if correctly understood and implemented, Libertarianism should be easy to understand but the waters have been muddied on purpose. There is no such confusion of terms with the statists who want an even more dictatorial government that is even more involved in the daily lives of its citizens. Libertarianism is a very simple idea: your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. Until and unless you strike my nose, where and how you swing your fist is none of the government's concern, not even if they think they know what's best for you.
This is not a rejection of all law enforcement or all regulation. It's a clarification of the purpose thereof. The confusion comes from the assumption that everyone who has any degree of Libertarian thought is a radical, extremist Libertarian who desires an anarco-capitalist society. The purpose of that is to cause people to dismiss the philosophy as absurd without actually examining it. Unfortunately average people won't put apparent absurdity to the test and find out if it is actual absurdity before choosing to dismiss new ideas. If you practice looking deeply into things, you will find that influential people and monied interests are keenly aware of this fact. One mechanism they use to protect their status quo is the gross misrepresentation of any ideas that would change it if implemented.
Here is a radical idea that meshes with the US Constitution
That seems to be the definition of "radical" these days. I guess that also makes you a right-wing extremist or an anarcho-libertarian. Isn't that what they call anyone who wants a minimal federal government that derives all of its authority and purpose from a literal, strict reading of the Constitution?
I still dont understand why the FDA does not allow drugs that have not been certified to be administered to terminal patients. There is no additional risk from doing it.
If the government respected a citizen's right to determine what will and won't be put into their own body, we would have never had a War on Drugs. What you mention there is just a logical extension of the idea that none of us can be trusted with the slightest degree of self-determination, not even when it cannot impact the lives of others.
You assume that these corporate whores give a rat's ass about their paying customers. In the old days, a business competed with other businesses for your dollar and had to care about you; new customers were valuable as there was a limited supply. These days of globalism there are seven billion prospective customers; there's more where you came from.
That's because the people who patronize the company are too ignorant/lazy/stupid to ask two questions:
What is this company's track record regarding how they have treated previous customers?
and
Based on that information, do I really want to do business with them, knowing that giving them money for products/services is not merely an exchange, but is also a statement of approval of their business practices?
As usual, Firefox performance on the v8 benchmark is pathetic where Chrome is more than 10 times faster.It is 24% faster than version 3.5.4 in V8 but it is clearly not enough. In the sunspider test, chrome is 2 times as fast as firefox. In this test, 3.6 is 17% faster than 3.5.4. Safari too comfortably beats Firefox in both these benchmarks
They should use Slashdot for testing JS performance. Click "Read More" to load a new discussion, then hit "Reply to This", type a response, hit "Preview", and count how many seconds it takes before you see the preview. May the best browser win!
Have you used Firefox? It has two options: one is "Copy" which copies the visible text; the other is "Copy Link Location" which places the URL in the clipboard. In this case, Firefox is not copying the visible text because the user is not telling it to do that.
You still misunderstand. For Google result pages, the href attribute of the links is actually the original URL (which can be trivially checked by looking at the source HTML). However, the page also has some JavaScript which intercepts clicked links, and redirects you via Google so that they detect the click. The problem with Firefox is that its "Copy Link Location" command does not copy the value in a/@href (as all other browsers do it), but tries to be smart, looks for said associated script, and sees where it will forward you to.
When you don't accept or execute Google's Javascript, the "copy link location" works as you would expect for every other site. As their search engine is the only service of theirs that I use, it's easy for me not to accept their JS.
The fact is that Firefox is NOT copying the visible text, and I don't think it's fair to blame that on Google.
Have you used Firefox? It has two options: one is "Copy" which copies the visible text; the other is "Copy Link Location" which places the URL in the clipboard. In this case, Firefox is not copying the visible text because the user is not telling it to do that.
Or we could just use the singular "they" which has been in use for hundreds of years. Yes, hundreds. Prescriptivists can go piss up a rope.
"They" is inherently plural, just like "we" is inherently plural when using the first-person. You might feel a need to make it bleedin' obvious, but what you point out was implied by my initial post; it is why I was very specific about limiting my comment to the utility of a new, third-person singular pronoun that is gender-neutral. "They" is often understood to have the meaning that you ascribe to it, but adapting a plural term for a certain implied singular usage is a less than elegant solution.
Perhaps one could also use the word "one" as a substitute for the he/she/they pronouns.
It's one of the many sexist pathologies of English that the male third person pronoun is used to indicate a generic third person. Using a female third person pronoun in a place where the context is obviously gender neutral highlights that pathology without sacrificing any meaning.
That it pisses you off indicates only that the pathology exists. This technique has existed for more than a decade in the humanities, and once you get used to it, it's as unnoticeable as 'he/him'--in other words, once that pathology has been exposed and turned off.
This is a far better way to remove a bit of useless baggage from the language than haranguing people to be PC or accusing them of being sexist. It just moves on to a better usage, and if that bothers you, it's only because you're trying to hang on to the old sexist trope.
It would be far better to create and use a new and actually gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. I like that better than pretending that the assumption of a feminine subject is somehow far less sexist than the assumption of a masculine subject. The latter is a rather puerile form of hypocrisy because reverse sexism is still sexism, a fact that must be acknowledged if you view the eradication of sexism as a worthy goal. That hypocrisy, the willful blindness to it, and the exhibition of both while telling others what they should do is the only baggage I see here.
A very small percentage of our summaries link to the NYTimes.
An even smaller percentage of the summaries link to the NYTimes with its "registration required" deal when no other news source that covers the story was available. I know there are ways around that registration requirement, but that isn't really my point.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazing how the mods will go with the GP's (incorrect) take on things rather than take the 800 milliseconds necessary to see for themselves that it was not a "Troll" post, as it is currently modded. Carelessness 1, High-quality Moderation 0. Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
I agree with everything you said, except 800ms is a bit short. I would say about 20 seconds, if you include the time to backtrack to the main page, click the link, wait for the website to load, and skim it for the relevant quote (which is the first question in the list). It could take up to a minute if they are slower readers -- we can't assume everyone reads as fast as we do.
Still, moderators should read the article before using their points if they're going to mod articles that reference the article's content. Now if it's just "First post!" or "ch34p v!4gr4" posts, then by all means... :\
It was immediately obvious to me that you were providing context. I have not read the article and it was not necessary for me to do so in order to know your intent. If anything, 800ms is generous but it accounts for people who are slow readers.
You've got it backwards. She was providing context, not removing it. The original full quote was:
"We will typically focus on High and Critical impact bugs, but any clever vulnerability at any severity might get a reward."
Amazing how the mods will go with the GP's (incorrect) take on things rather than take the 800 milliseconds necessary to see for themselves that it was not a "Troll" post, as it is currently modded. Carelessness 1, High-quality Moderation 0. Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
I don't know if you are an arrogant Mac user or a Pompous Linux Guru, but you have to realize that the vulnerabilties in Windows do not make the FUNDAMENTAL vulnerabilities in other systems go away.
If Microsoft folded up shop tomorrow and the only Machine you could get at a big store was a Mac, one of two things would happen. Either A) More and more viruses would pop up for Macintoshes. And yes, there are some, so don't try and deny that. Or B) Macs, being locked into a very specific hardware set would have to adopt a more open policy (opening more holes) or It would cause some serious stagnation in the producers of other computer parts - completely ruining all competition and slowing all progress.
And if everyone were using Linux, it would be just the same as before. Everyone would be Sudo'ing this and that and hackers will exploit any setup the user uses to make their PC Easier.
You need someone like Microsoft to be the scapegoat for the idiot masses so that more secure systems can even exist.
Microsoft is just catering to a need. The "need" is that people want to use technologies and networks without understanding what they are using or at least learning about their correct use. So long as people think this is a great idea and refuse to invest a little time learning about the tools they use every day, the security situation is not going to improve. I'm actually fine with this; people who fall for phishing attempts and the like are merely getting out of the system what they were willing to put into it. It concerns me that this is not a technological problem but technical solutions are being proposed for it. Those can only have the effect of restricting the free and open network that is available today for anyone who wants to learn how to use it.
Does it occur to you that perhaps they are trying to keep it that way?
The more visible copyright becomes, the more it gets discussed in media, and the more it becomes a well-known "issue" the more likely it is that there will be demand for reform. That's not what the interests behind it want.
One of my problems with regulation is that big business actually welcomes it. Why do you suppose that is?
Because they still pay off the people who write the regulations.
That isn't a complete sentence. The complete sentence would be, "because they still pay off the people who write the regulations and for some reason we put up with this." Sheep need a shepherd.
Like I said, 'packaging'. (Marketing packaging, legal packaging, intellectual property packaging, etc).
When you say "packaging" and the explanation has nothing to do with the commonly-understood definition of "packaging", just extend the meaning of the word so that you are always right! That will fool everyone!
Not printer ink, this is about outsourcing. Printer ink costs a lot because of the pretty packaging.
I disagree with that, though I am sure the packaging is also a factor. Liquid printer ink (i.e. for ink jets) costs so much because the printers are sold as cheaply as possible, at a very low margin and maybe even at a loss. The company then hopes to make that profit back by selling overprices consumables. Laser printers don't use this model. This is why when you buy a laser printer, you pay significantly more money up-front for the printer itself and thereafter you can purchase cheap consumables that more closely reflect the actual cost of producing toner.
Without altering its meaning, this can be rephrased as, "my perspective is different from yours, therefore yours is horseshit." How nice, you've elected yourself the arbiter of validity on a matter of opinion.
I'm fond of the way Samuel Clemens summed it up: "I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education." If you are able to pursue knowledge and understanding for its own sake, on your own when no one is looking, because it enriches your life, you have found a much purer guiding principle than appeasing a professor, making a grade, or obtaining a job. If you cannot do these things or cannot do them effectively outside of an institution and hierarchical authority structure, then what sort of student are you? If you can and are doing these things on your own and take personal responsibility for your own education, knowing that no one has your interests at heart quite like you do, then the only thing left to prove to any employer is that you are not too much of a wolf, that you can also play the sheep who can follow orders.
A decent mentor will teach you what he knows and will probably enjoy feeling like someone is dependent on their guidance. It's a common way of feeling self-important. A great mentor will show you that you are capable of teaching yourself and will equip you to be your own mentor.
CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume. That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.
That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.
College is about having goals, meeting deadlines, and dealing well (i.e. obediently) with authority figures, your willingness to allow them to determine the use of your time, your ability to follow their detailed instructions, and your willingness to be a cog in a large institution. Those are the qualifications employers find desirable. They likely know that in this industry, a degree does not necessarily indicate skill or ability and that many of the most skilled developers and technicians never went to college. What they do know is that it demonstrates you are willing and able to jump through hoops of the sort that they find useful.
How is that 'offtopic'?
It wasn't. It's like an AC said in a different discussion; the mod disagreed with him but did not have the intellectual capacity to construct a counter-argument.
If the more trigger-happy mods have an axe to grind and want to waste points, mod me down. Right now. I dare you. I have more karma than I need and would rather you mod me down than use your points where it would actually matter. Maybe I should have omitted that last sentence since it might make you reconsider doing it.
Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.
I heard of a case in which a store was selling "Y2K compatible" flashlights. The person who saw this couldn't tell if it was "stupid marketing or clever marketing aimed at stupid people".
See this for more.
It is unfortunate that dollars obtained from stupid people are just as green and spend just as well as money obtained from those who make intelligent purchasing decisions. Does this alone not explain modern marketing?
As compared to what? Martians?
This is a world wide problem, so I don't see what culture you're comparing to.
Are you taking this to be a Western problem? If so, could you outline what other cultures you find to be more forward-looking?
Thanks, Peter
I will answer your question with another question. Do you require a tangible, external counter-example before you are able to realize what is wrong with something? Or can you view our general lack of foresight and preparedness as an addressable problem in its own right, whether or not some "other" also manifests the same problem?
My comment was not about the superiority or inferiority of Western culture when compared to some other. If my comment were about that, I would have specified two distinct cultures. I didn't because I frankly have no interest in such pissing contests. They are for weak people who want to feel better about themselves by means of a group identity; they are not for individuals. If you have a personal sensitivity to that subject that causes you to perceive it whether or not I actually made such a comparison, it is not related to anything I have said. I do not mean that maliciously and I hope you can understand that this is a natural response to the petty concerns you are asking me to indulge and legitimize.
What you would call different "cultures" may speak different languages, celebrate different holidays, eat different foods, and have different religious beliefs, but there is little diversity when it comes to statecraft. A panicky population that is reacting with fear to a crisis is much easier to rule whether that population is Western, Eastern, or any other. In that one sense, we all share a sort of culture. That is why it's a world-wide problem.
Why? He's right. When a problem is right on top of you, it's very easy to quantify.
Yes I know the saying, "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". But it doesn't work that way. It's hard to quantify a problem that's years in the future, so preventions tend to be financially wasteful.
Note that I specifically (and plainly) said problems which are predictable and inevitable. By definition, these are not difficult to quantify. This is why attention to detail, good reading comprehension, or whatever you prefer to call it is important. Sorry but I see this mistake all the time and it's a careless one.
At any rate, Aesop had it right. The ant had a much easier time than did the grasshopper.
Lao Tzu had it right as well. To paraphrase, every large and difficult-to-solve problem was once a small problem that could have been easily solved. Once realized, the only limit to the application of this principle is whether you have the fine perception necessary to notice a problem while it is in its early stages and nip it in the bud before it blossoms. What I was saying before is that government does not grok this principle because it doesn't want to; it has no such incentive. That is, it's unreasonable to expect an amoral organization to willingly take any action that would result in less money and power for that organization. Government is unfortunately no exception.
It's hard to institute a Federal Reserve system if there is no Great Depression. It's hard to pass a law like the Patriot Act if there is no September 11th attack. It's hard to justify warrantless wiretapping if there is no bogeyman around every corner. The term for the technique is the Hegelian Dialectic, aka "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis," aka "Problem, Reaction, Solution."
What will happen will be the standard that us humans have followed throughout the ages. We will wait until the IPv4 addresses run out and then force businesses to start using IPv6 if they want to get on the internet. There will be a temporary boon for networking manufacturers as companies will have to change their equipment As a side curiosity, I wonder how many public IPv4 IPs are actually in use.
Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.
My own beliefs are also strongly influenced by Libertarian philosophy, though I am not inclined to derive any aspect of my identity from simplistic labels. Thus, I don't call myself a Libertarian because I reserve the right to differ from their stated positions.
I recognize three roles that are legitimate purposes of government. Any legitimate authority government has derives from its service of these three things: defense, law enforcement, and public works. Anything else is an overextension and is likely to be blatant tyranny.
Defense consists of the just use of the military to offer armed resistance to national enemies. I strongly agree with Thomas Paine who said "not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder". An example of the legitimate use of defense would be a foreign army aggressively invading Ameican soil. I don't personally recognize as valid the use of flimsy excuses to justify the use of force to interfere with other sovereign nations.
The correct purpose of law enforcement is to prevent one citizen from using force or fraud to deprive any other citizens of their life, their freedom, or their property. It is not valid to use this power to micromanage the lives of people based on some idea of what's good for them. That includes the carrot-and-stick methods of income taxation. I believe that consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want, so long as their actions do not impact unwilling participants. So if someone wants to sit at home and smoke crack all day, that is unfortunate and I hope they obtain a higher concept of themselves, but it is not my job to tell them how they should live. However, if they rob other people to pay for their crack habit the government has an obligation to lock them up because they are using force to deprive another person of property. The reason why they did so is immaterial.
Public works usually includes things like roads and bridges. I have no problem with this also including the funding of scientific research, because everyone benefits from those advances just like everyone benefits from well-maintained roads. Additionally, much "pure research" is not expected to generate a profit in the foreseeable future so by its very nature it would not do well in the marketplace.
Wealthy people and corporations do not pay up much under the current "progressive" income tax system. The real private wealth in this country is largely held by old-money families. It is inherited and it is invested and otherwise it is unearned income. There are many methods of avoiding even the capital gains tax. The only reason to have an income tax is because it lets you use carrot-and-stick methods to financially reward and punish certain behaviors in order to manipulate people. Otherwise, an income tax is the least efficient and most easily cheated form of taxation in existence.
Corporations do not really pay taxes. Yes, they have a tax rate and yes they send a check to the government to pay that tax. But they rightly consider taxes as a cost of doing business, and as such, it is one factor determining how much they charge for goods and services. If you raise the corporate income tax, the corporation will charge more to its customers to compensate. Its competitors will have to absorb the same cost so competition will not eliminate this. When you pay for goods, about 22% of what you pay is a hidden, embedded cost that comes directly from the income tax on the corporation. For services, it's slightly higher. Corporations don't pay taxes so much as they pass them on and act as collection agents for the government.
The Fair Tax would throw out the income tax entirely, eliminate the IRS, and replace them with a national sales tax. This sales tax has a built-in rebate to guarantee it does not apply to the basic necessities of life, reducing its impact on poor people. As a consumption tax, it does not punish the earning of
I guess that also makes you a right-wing extremist or an anarcho-libertarian. Isn't that what they call anyone who wants a minimal federal government that derives all of its authority and purpose from a literal, strict reading of the Constitution?
The Libertarians would also sell off our roads to the Chinese despite the Constitution calling for federal regulation of them, so you'll need to find some other name for people wanting a literal reading of the Constitution (like "strict constructionist")
My whole point was that the labels were not being used correctly. You are merely reiterating my point. It sometimes surprises me that people can feel such a need to do this that the redundancy of it does not deter them.
Having said that, it's my personal belief that the truest Libertarians were the Founding Fathers. Today's Libertarian Party as a political organization can either follow in those footsteps or it can fail to do so, but that does not concern me as an individual. Although, I personally do not know of anyone identifying themselves as Libertarian who advocates having the government take actions that are blatantly illegal under the Constitution. That would be like people who refer to themselves as (i.e.) Christian and then do things that clearly contradict the tenets of Christianity. They can say whatever they want, but they are still engaging in hypocrisy.
If there are self-described "Libertarians" who want to sell public roads to China, they certainly do not represent all Libertarians. Most Libertarian thinkers I have ever heard from are quite the opposite; they believe many of today's problems are caused by the government exceeding its authority and engaging in behaviors that are either unconstitutional or questionably constitutional.
Like any other philosophy that would radically and favorably alter the status quo if correctly understood and implemented, Libertarianism should be easy to understand but the waters have been muddied on purpose. There is no such confusion of terms with the statists who want an even more dictatorial government that is even more involved in the daily lives of its citizens. Libertarianism is a very simple idea: your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. Until and unless you strike my nose, where and how you swing your fist is none of the government's concern, not even if they think they know what's best for you.
This is not a rejection of all law enforcement or all regulation. It's a clarification of the purpose thereof. The confusion comes from the assumption that everyone who has any degree of Libertarian thought is a radical, extremist Libertarian who desires an anarco-capitalist society. The purpose of that is to cause people to dismiss the philosophy as absurd without actually examining it. Unfortunately average people won't put apparent absurdity to the test and find out if it is actual absurdity before choosing to dismiss new ideas. If you practice looking deeply into things, you will find that influential people and monied interests are keenly aware of this fact. One mechanism they use to protect their status quo is the gross misrepresentation of any ideas that would change it if implemented.
That seems to be the definition of "radical" these days. I guess that also makes you a right-wing extremist or an anarcho-libertarian. Isn't that what they call anyone who wants a minimal federal government that derives all of its authority and purpose from a literal, strict reading of the Constitution?
If the government respected a citizen's right to determine what will and won't be put into their own body, we would have never had a War on Drugs. What you mention there is just a logical extension of the idea that none of us can be trusted with the slightest degree of self-determination, not even when it cannot impact the lives of others.
You assume that these corporate whores give a rat's ass about their paying customers. In the old days, a business competed with other businesses for your dollar and had to care about you; new customers were valuable as there was a limited supply. These days of globalism there are seven billion prospective customers; there's more where you came from.
That's because the people who patronize the company are too ignorant/lazy/stupid to ask two questions:
What is this company's track record regarding how they have treated previous customers?
and
Based on that information, do I really want to do business with them, knowing that giving them money for products/services is not merely an exchange, but is also a statement of approval of their business practices?
My javascript performance comparison between Firefox 3.6 and Chrome and Safari http://www.manu-j.com/blog/firefox-3-6-vs-chrome-vs-safari-javascript-performance/432/
They should use Slashdot for testing JS performance. Click "Read More" to load a new discussion, then hit "Reply to This", type a response, hit "Preview", and count how many seconds it takes before you see the preview. May the best browser win!
Have you used Firefox? It has two options: one is "Copy" which copies the visible text; the other is "Copy Link Location" which places the URL in the clipboard. In this case, Firefox is not copying the visible text because the user is not telling it to do that.
You still misunderstand. For Google result pages, the href attribute of the links is actually the original URL (which can be trivially checked by looking at the source HTML). However, the page also has some JavaScript which intercepts clicked links, and redirects you via Google so that they detect the click. The problem with Firefox is that its "Copy Link Location" command does not copy the value in a/@href (as all other browsers do it), but tries to be smart, looks for said associated script, and sees where it will forward you to.
When you don't accept or execute Google's Javascript, the "copy link location" works as you would expect for every other site. As their search engine is the only service of theirs that I use, it's easy for me not to accept their JS.
Have you used Firefox? It has two options: one is "Copy" which copies the visible text; the other is "Copy Link Location" which places the URL in the clipboard. In this case, Firefox is not copying the visible text because the user is not telling it to do that.
Or we could just use the singular "they" which has been in use for hundreds of years. Yes, hundreds. Prescriptivists can go piss up a rope.
"They" is inherently plural, just like "we" is inherently plural when using the first-person. You might feel a need to make it bleedin' obvious, but what you point out was implied by my initial post; it is why I was very specific about limiting my comment to the utility of a new, third-person singular pronoun that is gender-neutral. "They" is often understood to have the meaning that you ascribe to it, but adapting a plural term for a certain implied singular usage is a less than elegant solution.
Perhaps one could also use the word "one" as a substitute for the he/she/they pronouns.
No, it's a good choice.
It's one of the many sexist pathologies of English that the male third person pronoun is used to indicate a generic third person. Using a female third person pronoun in a place where the context is obviously gender neutral highlights that pathology without sacrificing any meaning.
That it pisses you off indicates only that the pathology exists. This technique has existed for more than a decade in the humanities, and once you get used to it, it's as unnoticeable as 'he/him'--in other words, once that pathology has been exposed and turned off.
This is a far better way to remove a bit of useless baggage from the language than haranguing people to be PC or accusing them of being sexist. It just moves on to a better usage, and if that bothers you, it's only because you're trying to hang on to the old sexist trope.
It would be far better to create and use a new and actually gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. I like that better than pretending that the assumption of a feminine subject is somehow far less sexist than the assumption of a masculine subject. The latter is a rather puerile form of hypocrisy because reverse sexism is still sexism, a fact that must be acknowledged if you view the eradication of sexism as a worthy goal. That hypocrisy, the willful blindness to it, and the exhibition of both while telling others what they should do is the only baggage I see here.
An even smaller percentage of the summaries link to the NYTimes with its "registration required" deal when no other news source that covers the story was available. I know there are ways around that registration requirement, but that isn't really my point.