> that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime
Why don't you start with something less detrimental to society than drugs, say polygamy?
Then tell me how it goes.
Most people simply don't want to practice polygamy. If they do, that's not my business and it's not my job to stop them.
Both myself and my significant other want a one-on-one, monogamous relationship. Let's say a home down the street has a polygamist family. Polygamy is the only usual thing they do; everything else is quite normal. All members of that home understand what polygamy is and have entered into the arrangement willingly. In what way are they harming you or me? On what grounds would you use the police power of government (force, guns, threats of force) to stop them?
There is no answer to that question that makes sense. There are lots of "I want to force, at the point of a government gun, other people to live the way I live" type of reasons. Those make no sense; they're just an egotistical fantasy.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime.
There are certain words that seem to invite trouble, whether you are dealing with science or people. Among them are: impossible, always, never, and I'll include "anything" for the post. (I kind of wish I had never heard the news story on this...)
You failed to explain why you consider this problematic. It works better than nit-picking semantics. I read your link and it sounds like everyone involved consented. So long as no one was ever forced to participate, I don't see the problem here. If you think what they did was fucked up (and I agree, it is) then all you have to do is not knock on their door and ask to participate. Isn't that simple? They got to choose and you get to choose, which is something actual victims don't get to do. I realize the state loves an excuse to use force, but there is no actual crime here.
So then: what activity among consenting adults do you believe would damage society and in what way would that damage occur? Note, the moment third parties are affected you fail the "consenting adults" criteria. (I.e. Drinking? Fine. Driving drunk? No, because now you are endangering others who did not consent to be endangered. That is a crime and deserves to be treated as such.)
Little tip to Obama: this could be a solution for your prison overcrowding problems. Dump them on these third rate socialist shit holes. Just make sure you tag each criminal as enemy of the USA, and they will lap up anything you throw at them. Even if you pay for air fare you win. Try it.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime. Nice joke, though.
People were not complaining about selling games with the DRM an, they were complaining about not being able to play them.
That's exactly what DRM is designed to do. By putting up with it, you are subsidising your own restrictions.
Anything else amounts to expecting the gaming corporations to act against their own profit motives. If they can tempt you into accepting unreasonable restrictions with the latest shiny, they will. If they can either kill off or control the used games markets, they will. These things make them more money. It's just that simple.
Anyone who purchases DRM'ed titles and complains about this needs to take a long look into the mirror. Expecting goodwill from these corporations is madness. They view you in much the same way that coal companies view the mines. You're a resource to be tapped. What's right and wrong to these sociopaths is whatever you'll bend over and take. I mean, this should be easy: we are talking about gaming systems here, not food and water. The slightest discipline means you prevail and *they* bend over and take it because their alternative is going out of business.
The situation is downright pitiful. I think the executives see it this way as well, which is why they feel completely justified in their exploitation. They feel completely justified taking advantage because it's what so many people want (or don't care about) and are willing to pay for.
If there are advertisements, then the hardware and games should be free. If the user is paying for the hardware and games, there should be no advertisements.
I have this distant hope that gamers will learn the lesson taught to us by cable TV. Originally cable TV was ad-free on the basis that you were paying a fee for it. Then ads were introduced and for some reason, viewers tolerated it. They grabbed their ankles and took it just like they typically do, so cable TV ads became firmly entrenched.
Gamers, the same thing will happen to you if you put up with this. There can be no doubt about it.
She probably is a US citizen, and even if not, she would have something to contribute if she became one. Strangely enough, the US consists of people whose heritage is from all over the world. It's one of the strengths of the country that it can draw on that cultural heritage and diversity within its own citizens to better understand languages and other cultural matters when in pursuit of intelligence in other countries.
That's the way it's supposed to be, yes. Unfortunately our politicians long ago discovered that divide-and-conquer can easily be implemented by pitting various groups against each other while promising to protect each from the others. This is why the USA has a collective unhealthy obsession with group identity. It's always black vs. white, rich vs. poor, Muslim vs. Christian, homosexual vs. heterosexual, etc. etc. Individuality is given only lip service by comparison.
This malignant design has been sadly successful. It has one primary goal and one secondary goal. The secondary goal is to herd voters into blocs that can be reliabily depended upon to maintain the ridiculously high incumbency rate. The primary goal is to conceal the one true division: the ruling class vs. everyone else.
A country with a more homogeneous population has a big problem trying to understand the rest of the world.
We manage to have that problem despite our genetic diversity because we have so precious little diversity of philosophy and viewpoint. The decline of federalism and the establishment of a very powerful central government sealed the deal. Now we have lots of people who look different but think in the same way. Cosmetically that's great. In every other way it's more of the same old status quo.
Your bigoted attitude will discourage people from getting involved, and ultimately undermines the security of the country.
You'll find that average Americans tend to be much more provincial than, say, the average European. Mainstream Americans usually speak only one language and don't visit foreign countries nearly as often as mainstream Europeans.
You know what REALLY discourages people from getting involved? The inability of most people to hire lots of lawyers and lobbyists which, when the media so grossly fails to do its job, is the only way things actually get done in Washington.
Your perspective is that of an adult who is able to deal with reality. Those complaining that it's somehow "not nice" to expect real answers from people who are our servants and routinely act against our interests have some serious growing up to do. If everything the NSA did were acceptable and beneficial, these wouldn't be "uncomfortable" questions. It just can't be that hard to understand.
We're being transformed into a nation of pussies who can't deal with reality unless it's brought down to a child's emotional level, dumbed down to about a 5th-grade reading level (not a joke - the media targets this), condensed into 10-second sound bites to suit the prevailing attention span, spoon-fed, and guaranteed never to offend the most irrational and overreactive among us.
You can blame Wall Street, megacorps, sociopaths in government, and the like, but those are opportunists who saw a weakness and ruthlessly exploited it. The truth is, the nation is losing its prosperity because it is no longer worthy of it. For all the people who like to put on a big show this time of year concerning how fashionably patriotic they are, so few are actually looking for the root of our problems.
You should look at it from the other side, It's not a matter of not finding americans to fill their jobs, it's a matter that Americans easily become too costly to fill the jobs, and a cheaper alternative is requiered for business to happen.
I have friends who worked on H1Bs at plenty of Silicon Valley companies, where a lot of the workforce were not Americans. Their salaries were not that of slave workforce at all, but still allowed the companies to reduce cost a lot in their intial stages, then they grew and hired more Americans.
Americans have to understand that they are easily becoming too costly, with unheard of salaries anywhere else in the world, you are choking your own business, which would rather outsource or hire H1Bs than hiring you.
That fails to explain why the productivity of American workers has steadily increased for half a century while wages have remained stagnant. This fact is simple and easy to understand -- we are producing more and earning less. Somebody's getting screwed and it's us. Don't let this become obfuscated in all the phoney controversy.
I tend to agree with your other points, though if Linux actually reached a critical level of use, its security practices would start getting tested, too. Attackers love to see Linux systems because they're trusted to be secure, a trust which is often violated. You seem to know what you're doing, but the corporate Linux uses that I've seen have relied on poor understanding of how they should be maintained, often based on arrogant declarations from the sysadmins who do things like boast of not having rebooted the web server in two years.
Security is like a game of chess between two or more people. It's not a game of a person against a machine.
The nice thing about Linux is that any sane configuration means you aren't going to worry about a Web site doing a drive-by installation of malware. That does not mean a skilled and determined attacker couldn't penetrate it.
Corporate users of anything should be letting IT deal with security (and follow IT's policies) and focus on doing their jobs. Also, the kexec syscall means it really is possible to avoid rebooting a server for two years while continuing to keep the kernel and userland software up-to-date, not to mention that large organizations tend to have multiple redundant servers so that a few can be rebooted at a time while maintaining availability. If you're talking about a single physical machine running a two-year-old kernel, and connected to the Internet, then yes that's just asking for trouble. Linux sadly isn't the first magical idiot-poof system. It just doesn't try to be which is more than I can say for Windows.
After slashdoters wrote posts like WIndows 7 == Vista SP 2 they had an effect. Many assume WIndows 7 must suck too because that lie was repeated so many times everywhere by XP loyalists. Many are hesitant to change thinking it is just as slow and bloated and that somehow XP will run faster 100% of the time (not understanding algorithm changes and extra optimizations from the compiler added to the kernel for newer cpus).
I seriously doubt that Joe Sixpack goes running to Slashdot for advice on which OS to purchase. Joe Sixpack just uses whatever comes with his new computer. If the latest shiniest Windows sales are down it's because desktop computer sales in general are down. Making Windows go faster is no longer the prime reason to buy a new machine like it was when we referred to it as Wintel.
I did briefly try Win 7 because it came with a then-new laptop I purchased. I was impressed, actually. For Windows, it was great. For Windows, anyway. Sadly, copyright issues alone would prevent MS from ever offering a comprehensive centralized package manager comparable to what Linux distros offer. Having to track down hardware drivers (at all, ever) is a nuisance. Being treated like a dumb user at every turn is definitely a nuisance. The fact that good relatively common-sense security practices are not enough to prevent malware is a showstopper for me. Not being able to poke around under the hood and configure damned near everything, well that sucks. So little choice in desktop environments sucks too. Needing additional software to do what are nowadays basic things (like GOOD remote access, a compiler, etc) that are standard features on *nix is a nuisance. PowerShell is too little, too late compared to what Bash and its predecessors have done for decades (!) now. A binary registry is simply a bad design decision. And while you may find some sense of community among other Windows users, you will not share that with the people who actually put it together.
Slashdot users are more likely to care about some, or all of these things, or something along the lines, than the mass market that drives Windows sales. Here, you may have a point. But every last Slashdotter could boycott Windows forever and it would be a rounding error in terms of MS sales figures. That doesn't explain why Win 7 hasn't skyrocketed the way XP did. It's either ignorant or dishonest for you to pretend that it does.
If you're buying the latest and greatest gaming cards, you're probably going to want DirectX 10 or 11, good multicore support, and an OS that can handle more than 3-ish GB of RAM.
This is a complete slow-news-day non-story. It's just a more specific way of saying "nothing lasts forever".
The headline should have been "Nothing Lasts Forever and XP Won't Be the First Exception" or maybe "For-Profit Corporation Doesn't Want to Support Dying Platform". Not exactly surprising, informative, or newsworthy.
direct x is an api meant to standardize gpu features and and access to them. While originally it was largely a api used by gaming developers, it has since moved far away from that. Today directx is used by video/image apps, bitcon miners, web browsers and even windows itself. This is why updating directx is not simply a matter of updating a few dll's and installing new drivers anymore, but require changes to the actual kernel, which is something you can't do without breaking all kinds of apps that rely on the quirky behavior of the old one.
And the fact that giving MS more money is the way out of said situation is a complete and total coincidence that could not possibly have been planned that way. Not even when you consider they have a long history of doing the same thing with Office and document formats, among other examples.
To me, it's connects them to 9/11 truthers, that's why I can't stand it.
If you seriously investigate the official explanation for how those buildings collapsed, particularly Building 7 which was never struck by a plane, you will see on your own that there are far too many things that just don't add up. If a shoddy and inconsistent explanation for something so important is acceptable to you, then okay, it makes sense to think the 9/11 truthers are ridiculous.
Just one thing to get your inquiry started, should you choose to make one: 9/11 was not the first time a concrete-and-steel skyscraper was struck by an airplane. It is also not the first time such a building had a serious fire. Matter of fact, similar buildings have burned for days, not hours. It was, however, the first time such a building ever collapsed for this reason.
Even if I hated someone's guts, I could still respect that they draw a clear distinction between what they want to believe and what they are willing to consider. What you want to believe is more of an article of faith.
No, it is only hypocritical if you think you can have a blog (or whatever) with moderated comments, while wanting to prevent someone else from having such a blog. And this actually applies to government censorship too. If government expects to publish information in web or in a dead tree format, then government can't prevent others from doing the same without exercising censorship.
Even if the government itself never actively published anything, it would still be censorship to prevent someone else. Hypocrisy, no; censorship, yes.
The basic idea is that the Constitution is like a default-deny firewall. The government has no powers whatsoever, except those granted to it by the Constitution.
The modern trend of doing things like "well we can attach a dollar value to nearly anything at all, and the economy means we are all interconnected in some manner, so clearly the Commerce Clause means we can do whatever the fuck we want at any time!" disturbs me. I do not believe this was intended at all.
What does it take, exactly, for a Supreme Court judge to say "you know, maybe the federal government is big enough and powerful enough as it is, so maybe just maybe my ruling should make the case that the latest $power_expansion technique is going too far"? Like I said before, it would seem like you have to really believe in the system to get to be a Supreme Court judge. I don't really place much faith in systems. What I do believe is that it is inherently in the nature of authority and power to be abused, which is why all proposals to expand it must be regarded with the most extreme suspicion, while all proposals to reduce it are assumed good until proven otherwise.
It may be a joke, and I know of no reason to believe it, but unless you can prove it didn't/doesn't happen that way you shouldn't close your mind to the possibility.
I sincerely believe that the system does work that way, or in some manner very much like it, dominated by the international bankers such as those who run the Federal Reserve and other similar private banks operating in every 1st-world nation on the planet. They don't care about distraction (passion-sink) issues like the whole abortion debate, or the flag-burning of yesteryear. But every American President who tried to institute government-issued interest-free currency has been assassinated: Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and JFK. That's because controlling a nation's currency means you can bring it to its knees without ever firing a single shot. That's real power with little risk, unlike a king or czar who could be overthrown. I believe they actually arrange these events Manchurian Candidate-style, or in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, they just blame a patsy and invent some ridiculous story.
It amazes me how you can tell someone that a mugger might hurt or even kill for the $50 in a wallet, but if you suggest that powerful men play for keeps and are willing to kill over trillions of dollars and lots of power, then you're some kind of tin foil-hat wearing conspiracy nut. It's as though the media conditions us not to ever seriously consider the possibility, which gets really interesting when you consider there are about five corporations who control everything Americans see on TV, hear on the radio, or read in magazines and newspapers.
I merely temper this belief of mine with the fact that I have no solid proof of it. It is proper for a certain humility and meekness to go with that which you won't see me demonstrate when I know I can prove something. Having said that, I do believe that anyone who seriously looks into the matter with an open mind will come to the same conclusion. Not only will they come to that conclusion, they will realize that it's obvious. The problem is that most people are weak-hearted, intellectually and spiritually timid, and so they only believe what they want to believe and are prepared to believe. That isn't exactly a courageous search for truth.
So no, to more briefly answer your post: I don't easily close my mind to anything. The longer I live, the more I see for myself that some of the most absurd and inconceivable things are actually more true than anything one would consider comfortable and obvious. I wouldn't presume to place artificial limitations on a possibly infinite Universe that no one has begun to understand. It is the height of arrogance to say something can't be true without the ability to soundly falsify it. The farthest one can reasonably go is to say "I really don't know."
Of course, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, NSA and friends already have this 10-years-into-the-future technology...
With a nearly unlimited budget, no need to sell a product or make a profit, some of the best and brightest talent in the world (they especially like math majors), and the ability to spy on and thus learn from nearly anyone... well, they'd be pretty damned incompetent if they somehow aren't ahead of the mainstream. Make no mistake, "national security" is a very high-stakes game, these are people who play to win, and "winning" means superiority.
That is a conspiracy theory? Usually those involve aliens or globalists bankers and such. This? This is two plus two type of material.
Alternately, for those that do use it, it seems like a really good way to cut OUT a lot of bloat. By taking out the middle man, I would think that you would be able to get better quality for cheaper than if you used a 3rd party program like fraps. I could be wrong, but considering these cards tend to be targeted towards gamers, and gamers like to make videos of them playing games, it seems like there may be something to this.
Perhaps this is where I'm unusual. I play games sometimes, but I've never desired to make a video of my gameplay.
If I ever did that, well since it hasn't happened yet, it would be such a rare event that maximum performance and minimal overhead wouldn't be a big concern at all. I'd rather have a smaller, leaner, less bloated (and potentially less buggy) driver myself. I mean, I have an nVidia card and I do appreciate the ability to tweak the features and performance that their drivers offer, but that's also why as an nVidia customer I find myself (in the minority of?) people who want a driver to stick to its core functions.
Besides, I'm using Linux so I wouldn't be using Fraps. That too probably makes my situation unusual.
Nvidia offers software to optimize game settings and record gameplay sessions
Did anyone else read that and think, "this does not belong in a device driver"?
Maybe it's a great idea that many people will use and there is no other possible way to accomplish this task in userspace. I'm open to that idea, but right now I just don't see the merit.
Even though they're "in charge," they might not set the rules due to a lack of political will (standing up to someone who wants to do something "to fight terrorists" or "in the name of national security" for fear of being portrayed as weak next election cycle)
This is why the Senators were originally appointed by their respective states, not elected. Changing that was a very bad idea.
And no! I am not under the delusion that some anal retentive asshat won't find something to whine about and declare that I am guilty of a crime of genocidal proportions due to my failure to double check before posting.
What if each electron is actually an entire universe, and by using more than necessary to transmit two posts, you have destroyed trillions of trillions?
well.. maybe they just don't want to look like dickheads coupe of years down the road.
and they're making a point about how senators are under gag orders. that's some transparent governing right there!
anyway, the privacy protections in the government surveillance have a flaw: technically the guys running the surveillance network can take any data they want out of it, so it depends on them not accessing the data without a court order. the logic behind how they "can't" spy on americans with it is simply because it's illegal to do so without a warrant. so the logic is that because it's illegal it can't be done. which is fine logic right there.
and they have long ago switched it around so that they can snoop on americans thought to have connections to foreigners anyhow.
There are only up to six degrees of separation (you know someone who knows someone is two) between yourself and any other human being on the planet. A greasy lawyer could probably make the case that every American has some connection to some foreigner at some time.
He was placed in the position where he could not simultaneously fulfill both parts of the oath. No matter what he did, he would be breaking part of it. So he sided with the constitution and the American people, and I think that makes him a hero.
I'm a little surprised there are still people who believe in the USA, who don't think it's too far gone, who are willing to risk ruining their own life in an attempt to turn the situation around rather than making an escape plan by deciding which foreign country they want to migrate to before leaving becomes too difficult.
Constitutional law is about arguing the constitution in court. -what arguments tend to succeed, what arguments tend not to. Unless the judge is receptive, it has nothing to do with normative truth.
The arguments allowing the government to expand its power by legitimizing what it was doing anyway are the ones most likely to succeed these days.
Abusing eminent domain not because you need the land for a legitimate public purpose, but because Wal-mart pays more taxes (not building a bridge or a school, but taking it from one private entity and giving it to another private entity)? Sure, the SCOTUS gives that a nice seal of approval. Police placing GPS tracking devices on vehicles without warrants and without even suspecting a specific crime? Hell, go ahead. Requiring citizens to buy a product/service from a private company or be hit with a fine? Yeah, we like that too. Applying no ceiling at all to the "limited" term of a copyright? Why not?
That's the Surpreme Court these days. It seems they've never seen a fascist or oppressive policy they didn't like. Government is always the good guys, never abuses its power, and always has our best interests at heart, right? Maybe you don't get to be a judge, let alone such a prestigious one, without first believing in the system so hard that everything it does must be good. Heh, maybe new Supreme Court judges are shown a video of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before (that's a joke - with props to Bill Hicks).
Bull crap.
But you go head and take small piece of sentence and act like that's the entire Constitution amendment.
Ass
The "Congress shall make no law" part means that Congress shall make no law like that described by the rest of a given amendment. This is pretty basic.
But hey, when you're a miserable person with lots of spite to vent, any target will do, right? That's why you don't bother providing an example or even a general idea of why you think I am wrong and how my mistake could be corrected. A constructive response wouldn't give you that false sense of superiority you so obviously crave.
You'll never, ever fill that void in your life this way. No matter how hard you try. Yes, you are that transparent. Now then, if you wish to discuss the Constitution like two gentlemen I would be glad to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
> that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime
Why don't you start with something less detrimental to society than drugs, say polygamy?
Then tell me how it goes.
Most people simply don't want to practice polygamy. If they do, that's not my business and it's not my job to stop them.
Both myself and my significant other want a one-on-one, monogamous relationship. Let's say a home down the street has a polygamist family. Polygamy is the only usual thing they do; everything else is quite normal. All members of that home understand what polygamy is and have entered into the arrangement willingly. In what way are they harming you or me? On what grounds would you use the police power of government (force, guns, threats of force) to stop them?
There is no answer to that question that makes sense. There are lots of "I want to force, at the point of a government gun, other people to live the way I live" type of reasons. Those make no sense; they're just an egotistical fantasy.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime.
There are certain words that seem to invite trouble, whether you are dealing with science or people. Among them are: impossible, always, never, and I'll include "anything" for the post. (I kind of wish I had never heard the news story on this ...)
The Castration Dungeon
You failed to explain why you consider this problematic. It works better than nit-picking semantics. I read your link and it sounds like everyone involved consented. So long as no one was ever forced to participate, I don't see the problem here. If you think what they did was fucked up (and I agree, it is) then all you have to do is not knock on their door and ask to participate. Isn't that simple? They got to choose and you get to choose, which is something actual victims don't get to do. I realize the state loves an excuse to use force, but there is no actual crime here.
So then: what activity among consenting adults do you believe would damage society and in what way would that damage occur? Note, the moment third parties are affected you fail the "consenting adults" criteria. (I.e. Drinking? Fine. Driving drunk? No, because now you are endangering others who did not consent to be endangered. That is a crime and deserves to be treated as such.)
Little tip to Obama: this could be a solution for your prison overcrowding problems. Dump them on these third rate socialist shit holes. Just make sure you tag each criminal as enemy of the USA, and they will lap up anything you throw at them. Even if you pay for air fare you win. Try it.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime. Nice joke, though.
People were not complaining about selling games with the DRM an, they were complaining about not being able to play them.
That's exactly what DRM is designed to do. By putting up with it, you are subsidising your own restrictions.
Anything else amounts to expecting the gaming corporations to act against their own profit motives. If they can tempt you into accepting unreasonable restrictions with the latest shiny, they will. If they can either kill off or control the used games markets, they will. These things make them more money. It's just that simple.
Anyone who purchases DRM'ed titles and complains about this needs to take a long look into the mirror. Expecting goodwill from these corporations is madness. They view you in much the same way that coal companies view the mines. You're a resource to be tapped. What's right and wrong to these sociopaths is whatever you'll bend over and take. I mean, this should be easy: we are talking about gaming systems here, not food and water. The slightest discipline means you prevail and *they* bend over and take it because their alternative is going out of business.
The situation is downright pitiful. I think the executives see it this way as well, which is why they feel completely justified in their exploitation. They feel completely justified taking advantage because it's what so many people want (or don't care about) and are willing to pay for.
Will not buy.
Neither will I.
If there are advertisements, then the hardware and games should be free. If the user is paying for the hardware and games, there should be no advertisements.
I have this distant hope that gamers will learn the lesson taught to us by cable TV. Originally cable TV was ad-free on the basis that you were paying a fee for it. Then ads were introduced and for some reason, viewers tolerated it. They grabbed their ankles and took it just like they typically do, so cable TV ads became firmly entrenched.
Gamers, the same thing will happen to you if you put up with this. There can be no doubt about it.
She probably is a US citizen, and even if not, she would have something to contribute if she became one. Strangely enough, the US consists of people whose heritage is from all over the world. It's one of the strengths of the country that it can draw on that cultural heritage and diversity within its own citizens to better understand languages and other cultural matters when in pursuit of intelligence in other countries.
That's the way it's supposed to be, yes. Unfortunately our politicians long ago discovered that divide-and-conquer can easily be implemented by pitting various groups against each other while promising to protect each from the others. This is why the USA has a collective unhealthy obsession with group identity. It's always black vs. white, rich vs. poor, Muslim vs. Christian, homosexual vs. heterosexual, etc. etc. Individuality is given only lip service by comparison.
This malignant design has been sadly successful. It has one primary goal and one secondary goal. The secondary goal is to herd voters into blocs that can be reliabily depended upon to maintain the ridiculously high incumbency rate. The primary goal is to conceal the one true division: the ruling class vs. everyone else.
A country with a more homogeneous population has a big problem trying to understand the rest of the world.
We manage to have that problem despite our genetic diversity because we have so precious little diversity of philosophy and viewpoint. The decline of federalism and the establishment of a very powerful central government sealed the deal. Now we have lots of people who look different but think in the same way. Cosmetically that's great. In every other way it's more of the same old status quo.
Your bigoted attitude will discourage people from getting involved, and ultimately undermines the security of the country.
You'll find that average Americans tend to be much more provincial than, say, the average European. Mainstream Americans usually speak only one language and don't visit foreign countries nearly as often as mainstream Europeans.
You know what REALLY discourages people from getting involved? The inability of most people to hire lots of lawyers and lobbyists which, when the media so grossly fails to do its job, is the only way things actually get done in Washington.
This simply cannot be rated highly enough.
Your perspective is that of an adult who is able to deal with reality. Those complaining that it's somehow "not nice" to expect real answers from people who are our servants and routinely act against our interests have some serious growing up to do. If everything the NSA did were acceptable and beneficial, these wouldn't be "uncomfortable" questions. It just can't be that hard to understand.
We're being transformed into a nation of pussies who can't deal with reality unless it's brought down to a child's emotional level, dumbed down to about a 5th-grade reading level (not a joke - the media targets this), condensed into 10-second sound bites to suit the prevailing attention span, spoon-fed, and guaranteed never to offend the most irrational and overreactive among us.
You can blame Wall Street, megacorps, sociopaths in government, and the like, but those are opportunists who saw a weakness and ruthlessly exploited it. The truth is, the nation is losing its prosperity because it is no longer worthy of it. For all the people who like to put on a big show this time of year concerning how fashionably patriotic they are, so few are actually looking for the root of our problems.
You should look at it from the other side, It's not a matter of not finding americans to fill their jobs, it's a matter that Americans easily become too costly to fill the jobs, and a cheaper alternative is requiered for business to happen. I have friends who worked on H1Bs at plenty of Silicon Valley companies, where a lot of the workforce were not Americans. Their salaries were not that of slave workforce at all, but still allowed the companies to reduce cost a lot in their intial stages, then they grew and hired more Americans. Americans have to understand that they are easily becoming too costly, with unheard of salaries anywhere else in the world, you are choking your own business, which would rather outsource or hire H1Bs than hiring you.
That fails to explain why the productivity of American workers has steadily increased for half a century while wages have remained stagnant. This fact is simple and easy to understand -- we are producing more and earning less. Somebody's getting screwed and it's us. Don't let this become obfuscated in all the phoney controversy.
I tend to agree with your other points, though if Linux actually reached a critical level of use, its security practices would start getting tested, too. Attackers love to see Linux systems because they're trusted to be secure, a trust which is often violated. You seem to know what you're doing, but the corporate Linux uses that I've seen have relied on poor understanding of how they should be maintained, often based on arrogant declarations from the sysadmins who do things like boast of not having rebooted the web server in two years.
Security is like a game of chess between two or more people. It's not a game of a person against a machine.
The nice thing about Linux is that any sane configuration means you aren't going to worry about a Web site doing a drive-by installation of malware. That does not mean a skilled and determined attacker couldn't penetrate it.
Corporate users of anything should be letting IT deal with security (and follow IT's policies) and focus on doing their jobs. Also, the kexec syscall means it really is possible to avoid rebooting a server for two years while continuing to keep the kernel and userland software up-to-date, not to mention that large organizations tend to have multiple redundant servers so that a few can be rebooted at a time while maintaining availability. If you're talking about a single physical machine running a two-year-old kernel, and connected to the Internet, then yes that's just asking for trouble. Linux sadly isn't the first magical idiot-poof system. It just doesn't try to be which is more than I can say for Windows.
After slashdoters wrote posts like WIndows 7 == Vista SP 2 they had an effect. Many assume WIndows 7 must suck too because that lie was repeated so many times everywhere by XP loyalists. Many are hesitant to change thinking it is just as slow and bloated and that somehow XP will run faster 100% of the time (not understanding algorithm changes and extra optimizations from the compiler added to the kernel for newer cpus).
I seriously doubt that Joe Sixpack goes running to Slashdot for advice on which OS to purchase. Joe Sixpack just uses whatever comes with his new computer. If the latest shiniest Windows sales are down it's because desktop computer sales in general are down. Making Windows go faster is no longer the prime reason to buy a new machine like it was when we referred to it as Wintel.
I did briefly try Win 7 because it came with a then-new laptop I purchased. I was impressed, actually. For Windows, it was great. For Windows, anyway. Sadly, copyright issues alone would prevent MS from ever offering a comprehensive centralized package manager comparable to what Linux distros offer. Having to track down hardware drivers (at all, ever) is a nuisance. Being treated like a dumb user at every turn is definitely a nuisance. The fact that good relatively common-sense security practices are not enough to prevent malware is a showstopper for me. Not being able to poke around under the hood and configure damned near everything, well that sucks. So little choice in desktop environments sucks too. Needing additional software to do what are nowadays basic things (like GOOD remote access, a compiler, etc) that are standard features on *nix is a nuisance. PowerShell is too little, too late compared to what Bash and its predecessors have done for decades (!) now. A binary registry is simply a bad design decision. And while you may find some sense of community among other Windows users, you will not share that with the people who actually put it together.
Slashdot users are more likely to care about some, or all of these things, or something along the lines, than the mass market that drives Windows sales. Here, you may have a point. But every last Slashdotter could boycott Windows forever and it would be a rounding error in terms of MS sales figures. That doesn't explain why Win 7 hasn't skyrocketed the way XP did. It's either ignorant or dishonest for you to pretend that it does.
If you're buying the latest and greatest gaming cards, you're probably going to want DirectX 10 or 11, good multicore support, and an OS that can handle more than 3-ish GB of RAM.
This is a complete slow-news-day non-story. It's just a more specific way of saying "nothing lasts forever".
The headline should have been "Nothing Lasts Forever and XP Won't Be the First Exception" or maybe "For-Profit Corporation Doesn't Want to Support Dying Platform". Not exactly surprising, informative, or newsworthy.
direct x is an api meant to standardize gpu features and and access to them. While originally it was largely a api used by gaming developers, it has since moved far away from that. Today directx is used by video/image apps, bitcon miners, web browsers and even windows itself. This is why updating directx is not simply a matter of updating a few dll's and installing new drivers anymore, but require changes to the actual kernel, which is something you can't do without breaking all kinds of apps that rely on the quirky behavior of the old one.
And the fact that giving MS more money is the way out of said situation is a complete and total coincidence that could not possibly have been planned that way. Not even when you consider they have a long history of doing the same thing with Office and document formats, among other examples.
Would you like to buy a bridge from me?
To me, it's connects them to 9/11 truthers, that's why I can't stand it.
If you seriously investigate the official explanation for how those buildings collapsed, particularly Building 7 which was never struck by a plane, you will see on your own that there are far too many things that just don't add up. If a shoddy and inconsistent explanation for something so important is acceptable to you, then okay, it makes sense to think the 9/11 truthers are ridiculous.
Just one thing to get your inquiry started, should you choose to make one: 9/11 was not the first time a concrete-and-steel skyscraper was struck by an airplane. It is also not the first time such a building had a serious fire. Matter of fact, similar buildings have burned for days, not hours. It was, however, the first time such a building ever collapsed for this reason.
Even if I hated someone's guts, I could still respect that they draw a clear distinction between what they want to believe and what they are willing to consider. What you want to believe is more of an article of faith.
No, it is only hypocritical if you think you can have a blog (or whatever) with moderated comments, while wanting to prevent someone else from having such a blog. And this actually applies to government censorship too. If government expects to publish information in web or in a dead tree format, then government can't prevent others from doing the same without exercising censorship.
Even if the government itself never actively published anything, it would still be censorship to prevent someone else. Hypocrisy, no; censorship, yes.
The basic idea is that the Constitution is like a default-deny firewall. The government has no powers whatsoever, except those granted to it by the Constitution.
The modern trend of doing things like "well we can attach a dollar value to nearly anything at all, and the economy means we are all interconnected in some manner, so clearly the Commerce Clause means we can do whatever the fuck we want at any time!" disturbs me. I do not believe this was intended at all.
What does it take, exactly, for a Supreme Court judge to say "you know, maybe the federal government is big enough and powerful enough as it is, so maybe just maybe my ruling should make the case that the latest $power_expansion technique is going too far"? Like I said before, it would seem like you have to really believe in the system to get to be a Supreme Court judge. I don't really place much faith in systems. What I do believe is that it is inherently in the nature of authority and power to be abused, which is why all proposals to expand it must be regarded with the most extreme suspicion, while all proposals to reduce it are assumed good until proven otherwise.
It may be a joke, and I know of no reason to believe it, but unless you can prove it didn't/doesn't happen that way you shouldn't close your mind to the possibility.
I sincerely believe that the system does work that way, or in some manner very much like it, dominated by the international bankers such as those who run the Federal Reserve and other similar private banks operating in every 1st-world nation on the planet. They don't care about distraction (passion-sink) issues like the whole abortion debate, or the flag-burning of yesteryear. But every American President who tried to institute government-issued interest-free currency has been assassinated: Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and JFK. That's because controlling a nation's currency means you can bring it to its knees without ever firing a single shot. That's real power with little risk, unlike a king or czar who could be overthrown. I believe they actually arrange these events Manchurian Candidate-style, or in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, they just blame a patsy and invent some ridiculous story.
It amazes me how you can tell someone that a mugger might hurt or even kill for the $50 in a wallet, but if you suggest that powerful men play for keeps and are willing to kill over trillions of dollars and lots of power, then you're some kind of tin foil-hat wearing conspiracy nut. It's as though the media conditions us not to ever seriously consider the possibility, which gets really interesting when you consider there are about five corporations who control everything Americans see on TV, hear on the radio, or read in magazines and newspapers.
I merely temper this belief of mine with the fact that I have no solid proof of it. It is proper for a certain humility and meekness to go with that which you won't see me demonstrate when I know I can prove something. Having said that, I do believe that anyone who seriously looks into the matter with an open mind will come to the same conclusion. Not only will they come to that conclusion, they will realize that it's obvious. The problem is that most people are weak-hearted, intellectually and spiritually timid, and so they only believe what they want to believe and are prepared to believe. That isn't exactly a courageous search for truth.
So no, to more briefly answer your post: I don't easily close my mind to anything. The longer I live, the more I see for myself that some of the most absurd and inconceivable things are actually more true than anything one would consider comfortable and obvious. I wouldn't presume to place artificial limitations on a possibly infinite Universe that no one has begun to understand. It is the height of arrogance to say something can't be true without the ability to soundly falsify it. The farthest one can reasonably go is to say "I really don't know."
Of course, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, NSA and friends already have this 10-years-into-the-future technology...
With a nearly unlimited budget, no need to sell a product or make a profit, some of the best and brightest talent in the world (they especially like math majors), and the ability to spy on and thus learn from nearly anyone ... well, they'd be pretty damned incompetent if they somehow aren't ahead of the mainstream. Make no mistake, "national security" is a very high-stakes game, these are people who play to win, and "winning" means superiority.
That is a conspiracy theory? Usually those involve aliens or globalists bankers and such. This? This is two plus two type of material.
Alternately, for those that do use it, it seems like a really good way to cut OUT a lot of bloat. By taking out the middle man, I would think that you would be able to get better quality for cheaper than if you used a 3rd party program like fraps. I could be wrong, but considering these cards tend to be targeted towards gamers, and gamers like to make videos of them playing games, it seems like there may be something to this.
Perhaps this is where I'm unusual. I play games sometimes, but I've never desired to make a video of my gameplay.
If I ever did that, well since it hasn't happened yet, it would be such a rare event that maximum performance and minimal overhead wouldn't be a big concern at all. I'd rather have a smaller, leaner, less bloated (and potentially less buggy) driver myself. I mean, I have an nVidia card and I do appreciate the ability to tweak the features and performance that their drivers offer, but that's also why as an nVidia customer I find myself (in the minority of?) people who want a driver to stick to its core functions.
Besides, I'm using Linux so I wouldn't be using Fraps. That too probably makes my situation unusual.
Nvidia offers software to optimize game settings and record gameplay sessions
Did anyone else read that and think, "this does not belong in a device driver"?
Maybe it's a great idea that many people will use and there is no other possible way to accomplish this task in userspace. I'm open to that idea, but right now I just don't see the merit.
Even though they're "in charge," they might not set the rules due to a lack of political will (standing up to someone who wants to do something "to fight terrorists" or "in the name of national security" for fear of being portrayed as weak next election cycle)
This is why the Senators were originally appointed by their respective states, not elected. Changing that was a very bad idea.
And no! I am not under the delusion that some anal retentive asshat won't find something to whine about and declare that I am guilty of a crime of genocidal proportions due to my failure to double check before posting.
What if each electron is actually an entire universe, and by using more than necessary to transmit two posts, you have destroyed trillions of trillions?
well.. maybe they just don't want to look like dickheads coupe of years down the road. and they're making a point about how senators are under gag orders. that's some transparent governing right there!
anyway, the privacy protections in the government surveillance have a flaw: technically the guys running the surveillance network can take any data they want out of it, so it depends on them not accessing the data without a court order. the logic behind how they "can't" spy on americans with it is simply because it's illegal to do so without a warrant. so the logic is that because it's illegal it can't be done. which is fine logic right there.
and they have long ago switched it around so that they can snoop on americans thought to have connections to foreigners anyhow.
There are only up to six degrees of separation (you know someone who knows someone is two) between yourself and any other human being on the planet. A greasy lawyer could probably make the case that every American has some connection to some foreigner at some time.
He was placed in the position where he could not simultaneously fulfill both parts of the oath. No matter what he did, he would be breaking part of it. So he sided with the constitution and the American people, and I think that makes him a hero.
I'm a little surprised there are still people who believe in the USA, who don't think it's too far gone, who are willing to risk ruining their own life in an attempt to turn the situation around rather than making an escape plan by deciding which foreign country they want to migrate to before leaving becomes too difficult.
Constitutional law is about arguing the constitution in court. -what arguments tend to succeed, what arguments tend not to. Unless the judge is receptive, it has nothing to do with normative truth.
The arguments allowing the government to expand its power by legitimizing what it was doing anyway are the ones most likely to succeed these days.
Abusing eminent domain not because you need the land for a legitimate public purpose, but because Wal-mart pays more taxes (not building a bridge or a school, but taking it from one private entity and giving it to another private entity)? Sure, the SCOTUS gives that a nice seal of approval. Police placing GPS tracking devices on vehicles without warrants and without even suspecting a specific crime? Hell, go ahead. Requiring citizens to buy a product/service from a private company or be hit with a fine? Yeah, we like that too. Applying no ceiling at all to the "limited" term of a copyright? Why not?
That's the Surpreme Court these days. It seems they've never seen a fascist or oppressive policy they didn't like. Government is always the good guys, never abuses its power, and always has our best interests at heart, right? Maybe you don't get to be a judge, let alone such a prestigious one, without first believing in the system so hard that everything it does must be good. Heh, maybe new Supreme Court judges are shown a video of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before (that's a joke - with props to Bill Hicks).
Bull crap. But you go head and take small piece of sentence and act like that's the entire Constitution amendment.
Ass
The "Congress shall make no law" part means that Congress shall make no law like that described by the rest of a given amendment. This is pretty basic.
But hey, when you're a miserable person with lots of spite to vent, any target will do, right? That's why you don't bother providing an example or even a general idea of why you think I am wrong and how my mistake could be corrected. A constructive response wouldn't give you that false sense of superiority you so obviously crave.
You'll never, ever fill that void in your life this way. No matter how hard you try. Yes, you are that transparent. Now then, if you wish to discuss the Constitution like two gentlemen I would be glad to do so.