Yes those evil lawyers. Fucking slashdot with its predictable "commentary."
Lawyers are one of the few priesthoods left in Western society. The purpose of a priesthood is to guard information from the uninitiated, so that most people are dependent on the priests.
The Catholic Church of medieval times really hated the idea of a Bible written in the native languages of the laypeople. They preferred Latin, a language that was generally taught only to the clergy at that time. If there is ever a movement to simplify the law and remove the legalese, so that the average person could easily understand and apply it without professional help, you will see a similar outcry from the lawyers.
The difference between a lawyer and a doctor is that the human body is inherently complex. The law is only so complex because men have made it so.
The cynic in me sometimes wonders if this is something they do on purpose. Publish new outrageous terms of service and then wait for the internet to explode. Wait a few hours more and then come on with a ready appology. A lot of people have enough invested in a particular site that they won't leave right away, and with an appropriate "apology" are molified. And a lot of exposure is thus gained. But given that other competitors are ready to swoop in, the other part of me dismisses it.
That tactic is used in politics all the time, particularly whenever the desire is to expand government. Float an idea and pretend like there's any real debate about what you are going to do anyway. It gives the illusion of legitimacy. If there is a lot of backlash, do it over time in baby steps with carefully crafted excuses as justification; if not, just go for it.
20 innocent lives snuffed out in Connecticut, and yet you continue to breathe our air. This is proof that there is no God.
It is proof that small-minded people want to blame (their concept of) God for what man has done.
I think I know what you want. You want a micromanaging God that doesn't ever let us make any of our own choices. That way nothing bad ever happens. That is a God you could believe in, with none of that messy faith stuff, right? Just like your other emotionally childish counterparts want a God-like Government that can take away all the guns because they are cowards, cowards love easy wrong answers, so they blame inanimate objects for what people do. That may be drugs, guns, video games, music, movies, you name it: these people are themselves so dehumanized and shallow that the human element is the very first thing they want to deny.
It ain't gonna work. Certain drugs are completely illegal in all circumstances. Guess what? They can't even keep them out of PRISONS. Perhaps a lot of people didn't know that? Maybe they hadn't researched the feasibility of this idea? No one who has looked into it thinks it's realistic. Lots of people who can't distinguish emotion from reason, who really don't know anything about the topic, think it's just great. What a coincidence. Maybe you could ponder that for a little while.
Now if you can grasp a general principle when you see one and realize that it applies to more than one thing, perhaps it will dawn on you that banning guns won't work either. It makes sense too. This shooting was done by a psychopath who obviously wasn't worried about dying and obviously wasn't worried about mass murder charges. Gee, I wonder if a weapons violation charge is going to deter him? Yeah, that DOES sound silly, now doesn't it? Good, the ability to face a harsh reality is the mark of adulthood.
I am glad you are not going to get what you want. The adults don't want to be stuck in your little playpen. Yes, 20 people were murdered. In fact the death toll was a bit higher than that. Is hating a troll going to bring them back? Is there, in fact, anything at all that you and I or anyone else could do to reverse what has been done? No, there isn't. But there are a lot of rash mistakes with long-lasting consequences that we could make. There are also lots of petty little ways that we could find reasons to hate each other. Do you think that either of those would honor the dead?
Speaking of small-minded people, I suppose it's time for them to call me names and express their impotent outrage because I said something they don't agree with. Knowing no better way, that is how they handle such things. It gives them a whole moment of feeling self-important before they come right back down to the life they have to live.
They are just making it easier to find the perpetrator.
THAT is who you should sue or prosecute.
And, does anyone else see the (huge) potential problem with the perception that "if Google doesn't list it, it does not exist"? They don't need to be even further entrenched.
i would prefer a moderate religious person over an atheist zealot, any day
What exactly is the definition of an "atheist zealot"? Asking for positive evidence sounds perfectly reasonable to me, especially whenever what those people profess is only one of a large number of equally likely alternatives. That's just simple logic of reasoning to me.
Well, he could start by not implicitly linking a few psychopaths who USE BOMBS AND MURDER OTHERS with those who go to church or have their own personal beliefs. He is not asking for evidence to satisfy his own inquiry. That would be a separate discussion. He's simply expressing his hatred and mockery of anyone who entertains beliefs he finds distasteful.
Blaming all religion (and he made no distinction) for the problems in Pakistan is like never eating food again because someone was choking.
This one is apparently wasted on him, but maybe you will appreciate it. I am not an atheist, yet I feel no need to mock, disrespect, denigrate, or look down my nose at anyone who chooses to be an atheist. To me that is a personal decision. If a person wants my input, they will have to ask me specifically. Otherwise, it's none of my damned business what they believe. I should treat other people with the dignity and respect they deserve no matter what I think about their faith or lack of faith.
That is what you are not seeing from the GP. He does not appear to be an atheist because he found no religion to be satisfying or believable. He appears to be an atheist so he can pat himself on the back for being better than all those "morons" who don't see things his way. What a miserable way to be. I assure you, no one who lives like that can be truly joyful and happy, not in any enduring sort of way. Their happiness depends on what other people do.
Sorry but ALL religion is insidious and evil. It is a means of control for the unintelligent and mentally lazy.
With organized religion there is some truth to that.
When an individual is seeking a way to express the more abstract parts of his or her nature, what is called spirituality, and finds that some of the best real teachers had one "persuasion" or another but tend to all say very similar things, as though they all saw the same things and put them in different terms according to different frameworks... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ignoring the progress made by those who came before means you are doomed to constantly reinvent the wheel.
The trick any real individual understands is to not get caught up with any particular language or framework, to instead focus on what truly advanced people have seen or done. It's the difference between looking at the finger that points, versus seeing the heavenly constellation it tries to point out.
Obviously individuals who really grok this tend not to herd together in large congregations with bylaws and conventions and someone to take the meeting minutes. For the most part, that is for the insecure who need to be surrounded by the like-minded to feel validated. Thus anyone who seriously questions or objects is a sort of threat. I for one say fuck that.
So what you're saying is that the UN votes should be weighted based on how democratic they are? The US barely makes the top 20 in that regard (Democracy Index.)
The right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if that might give "our team"* something to think about.
* No, I don't think that way because it's mindless, but nonetheless it's all too common.
Microsoft sees that they need to get into the "app" market to increase their profits, so they make a platform that puts "apps" first.
Then, logically, their worst fear would be that apps become more portable so that the underlying OS becomes increasingly irrelevant. They don't see that as an eventuality if they continue along this course?
Microsoft traditionally has removed options from users in subsequent OS changes, Windows 8 is the next progression of it.
Yeah. I disagree with it strongly, but there is certainly a school of thought that prefers to remove options because it might confuse us "stupid users", rather than implement those options in a more robust and transparent way.
How can you encourage people to upgrade if the UI looks the same? It would be much harder to do that.
By not treating them like complete idiots and explaining that changes made "under the hood" are important too. Yes, I know that's unrealistic but that's how it could easily be done. Only, this entire industry has invested so much in the opposite form of marketing that at this point, it would be a shock to the average customer.
I personally supplement Windows XP and 7 with tweaks that make it easy to do multiple things (VirtuaWin for multiple desktops, Find and Run robot for quickly opening programs, Winsplit Revolution for moving application windows to predefined areas, WizMouse for scrolling windows not in focus). I wish I could easily do all of those in Linux, but so far, it seems it would require a good amount of work to get it to work.
Two of those are standard features of X (VirtuaWin, WizMouse). What Winsplit Revolution does is handled by some window managers. But generally the best way to do multiple things in *nix is with the command line, which is really simple and straightforward if you know how to use it. Most GUI applications take command-line arguments or have command-line versions that make this very easy. I am not trying to talk you out of your preference (leave that for the zealots), just pointing out that Windows doesn't have a monopoly on those things. That's a good thing no matter which OS you use.
What was Microsoft thinking? Thinking had nothing to do with it; they had no choice.
See, Windows 98 SE was followed by Windows Me, which sucked more.
Windows Me was followed by Windows XP, which sucked less.
Windows XP was followed by Windows Vista, which sucked more.
Windows Vista was followed by Windows 7, which sucked less.
Windows 7 accordingly had to be followed by a "sucked more" release.
Heh that's pretty funny (because it's true). I believe you have identified the pattern!
Still... I don't like Microsoft one bit, but I would compromise my objectivity if I didn't admit that they have some seriously talented employees who really could do better. Is it that they don't want to break this pattern? Maybe they think a combination of vendorlock and "next one will be better really!" increases sales more than consistent improvements could? Or are they simply a one-trick pony in this regard?
I see a lot of otherwise successful companies make a lot of dumb decisions, things I could have told them were a bad idea. I assume that maybe at least one of these two possibilities is true: what you have to do to become an executive selects for a certain mentality and that one mentality only, with very little diversity of thought; or, once you get to such a position it becomes so abstract and you are surrounded by so many yes-men that it completely distorts your view of reality.
Considering that people who will do anything for positions of authority overwhelmingly tend to be sociopaths, it could be as simple as the sociopaths' inability to sincerely admit error and reverse course when it is appropriate to do so. They'd rather convince everyone else that there was no error.
I guess msft read the recent reports of abysmal sales for Windows 8 and decided to use its proven strategy of promoting piracy of Windows to drive up adoption.
I really don't understand what they're doing with Win 8.
I recently bought a netbook that came with Windows 7. I strongly prefer Linux, so it wasn't very long before I repartitioned the drive and installed the OS of my choice. But before I did that, I decided to gave Windows 7 a try, just for the hell of it. I was a bit impressed, actually.
I generally don't like the Windows way of doing things. I prefer the transparency of a *nix system, the storage of important settings in plain text files, the central package manager instead of being nagged about updates for lots of individual programs, the way I don't need malware scanners, the ease with which open source programs can be modified and studied, the fact that drivers are generally maintained with the kernel and not by third parties, the power of the command line, the ease of automation and scripting, the huge variety of choices for graphical desktop, the simple fact that my Linux distro of choice (Gentoo) doesn't assume I'm clueless and thus doesn't get in my way, the ease with which I can find out what caused a problem and fix it and it stays fixed, and the general Open Source philosophy.
Those things about Windows that I don't like are not going to change anytime soon. So it's just not for me. But, having said all that, when I tried Windows 7 I thought that Windows had come a long way. It was stable, solid, and slick. It seemed to me to be what most people wanted: a highly improved and polished XP.
Then I learn about Windows 8 and I'm wondering what the hell the people at Microsoft are thinking. It's as though they want to sabotage themselves. What do they hope to gain here? Is it just that the days of Win 9x made them too arrogant and they don't appreciate that people have more options now? Or what? I haven't seen them pull something like this since either Microsoft Bob or Windows Millenium.
As far as I know Microsoft *does* have a strong interested in being pirated in those jurisdictions in which they are not going to sell much anything. It's a question of market share and staying the monopolist.
Imagine if Microsoft openly acknowledged that and stopped pretending that all piracy is always bad for them. In fact they could even give a certain number of copies away, legitimately, in those jurisdictions and justify it by the many ways they benefit from increased marketshare. I wonder how other software companies (not to mention related copyright interests like the *AAs) would react. It would be interesting to see how they try to spin it.
I've got mod points, and would mod the comment "Informative" since most of the statement deserves it - but that "OK, you're a moron" comment you chose to include at the beginning really has no place in intelligent discourse.
I do see your point but I don't fully agree with it. When I mod a post up, I do it because I believe it is a net positive contribution. I might not like everything about it, but I think that its virtues outweigh its faults. I'm trying to promote interesting discussion a lot more than I'm trying to "punish" poor taste.
Besides, if someone makes a useful point but also makes an ass of himself, everyone who reads it will see that for themselves. They don't need me to parse that for them (and if they do, they have bigger problems). If it gets highly rated, even more people will see that he made an ass of himself. It balances out.
I use a distribution (Gentoo) which has "slots" for many packages like GTK. It fixes this problem neatly. The slots system means you can concurrently install two different versions of a package and they both work. It does not require the use of filesystem namespaces or any other such technique.
I have both GTK+-2.24.12 and GTK+-3.4.4 installed right now. Each is in its own slot. One resides in/usr/lib64/gtk-2.0 and the other in/usr/lib64/gtk-3.0. Not every package is slotted but things like GTK+ certainly are.
Gentoo is a source-based distro and a given program is linked against whichever one it needs at the time it is compiled, but there is no reason a binary distribution couldn't do the same (it would only be a matter of who is doing the compilation). It's simple, it's neat, and it works. I have no idea why this isn't more common.
"This attorney general is essentially pandering to a popular cause."
Well... given that, (shifting gears here), it's still a bad thing because pandering to "The Cause of the Day" is the worst kind of politics, and the source of much of our recent loss of freedom... regardless of the actual motive of the panderers.
I know there is a good historical quote about this but I did not find it after a short look. I will have to hunt it up for my collection.
I like reading your posts and have generally felt like they were worthwhile. I would enjoy seeing this quote if you manage to find it.
And I know what you mean about having a collection. My quotes file is a plain text file over 55k in size. Whenever I encounter a good one, I add it to that file. Over the years it's grown.
See this is the bullshit. Why is this jackwad getting a 1 from some slashdot fairy for engaging in mindless partisan bomb throwing? What he wrote is approved group think so he (or she) get a pat on the head?
It is easier when you understand that much of this comes from the frustration of never really feeling represented by anyone in Washington. Especially when the facts are so well-established and becoming more and more obvious. Copyright is just such an issue.
The War on (some) Drugs is another such issue. What that and copyright have in common is that the current laws just aren't working, this is obvious and well-known to anyone who looks into it, and there is no serious effort underway to reform the system.
He even labelled his comments as "sarcasm" and said he would like to be proven wrong. He was rather transparent about it. That's why the context surrounding it must also be considered, otherwise you really would just think he's engaging in mindless partisanism.
Seems like you have a closed mind. You're all-knowledgeable about what people who don't share your beliefs stand for. Are you unique in this world? I sure don't have the ability to get into the minds of people whose views I oppose. Yet somehow you can.
You must be a liberal.
Maybe he does have a closed mind, maybe he doesn't.
But you definitely should not be against something until you understand it.
I don't know what it is about these people. Don't they feel a bit of disgust trying to get in the way of someone who is, unlike them, trying to do something cool with their lives?
They do, but they blame that on whoever is trying to do something cool. That's what denial looks like. It's a reiteration of the emotional immaturity that has become so widespread.
Now they have to try even harder to shut them down, or else they'll be disgusted with the ineffectiveness of their disgust. There's potentially no end to how many layers of denial can be heaped on it. When people falsely think they are justified, they really badly need to win no matter how much they don't deserve to. Not getting what they want would mean losing face by making it more obvious they were not justified. You can see this pattern everywhere.
It's the same reason the Inquisition decided to spread the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ... by torturing people to death. Yeah I know that might seem a bit inconsistent with an actual reading of the words of Christ... but this way they "win" and the victim "loses" so they must have been "right"! And of course dead people stop saying things you find inconvenient. It's "might makes right" mixed with "shoot the messenger".
This is the courtroom version of the same little ego games. If these dealers were a bit more humble they'd recognize that they might be looking at their own future, and the time to invest in it is now. Unlike trying to halt inevitable progress, this is something that might work. But they are "right" in their own eyes and the other guy must necessarily be "wrong". So the court battle begins.
Why is parent modded at -1? Seriously, just look around and play with them wtf?
Acting helpless is the new(er) status symbol. Handholding you didn't need makes a statement. It says you deserve to be served - you have people for that. Of course intellectual laziness is also a popular development, which oddly seems to get worse and worse as information becomes more and more instantly available.
The vitriol that comes out of some people when you dare to suggest that they can handle something independently is amazing. "Hey, you're bright enough and resourceful enough to do this all by yourself" is a compliment. Not reinforcing someone's codependency is a good thing. The anger and vitriol, then, requires an explanation. The anger comes from not paying tribute, not agreeing with the sense of entitlement.
Not encouraging such a character weakness makes you a bad person, somehow. You'll be told how smug and elitist you are, etc. All of the negative feedback is designed to make you cave and pay tribute anyway. After all, you didn't go along with their self-importance so you must be punished. As though someone who says "I am capable of this, and so are you" is being elitist! It's actually an egalitarian position.
This paragraph is for the small-minded who invent things to rail against that were not said. Obviously, if someone makes a sincere effort and gets stumped that's different. That happens to everyone sometimes. But this does not require any complex skill or specialized knowledge. Basic literacy and a few minutes are the only resources this person would need in order to answer his own question. He demonstrated both just by asking the question, so we know he has them. Wanting help for that is a highly indirect (thus deniable) way of saying his time is more valuable than yours or mine.
Once you know yourself well enough to see (and thus, stop) these petty ego mechanisms within your own psychology, you will start to see them everywhere in others as well. The horrifying part is how universally accepted and unquestioned it is. It doesn't take very much introspection or contemplation to understand these things. What it does take is some kind of inner life to balance out the constant hectic worry about externals like work, bills, the economy, politics, and this-and-that. Otherwise there is no basis for comparison.
The annoying part is that everything I said above is straightforward... and someone's self-importance will be offended by it. Perhaps they will twist what I said to insult me in some manner, or act like I've done something horriby evil by pointing this out. That would be most boring and unsurprising.
Please read this article, look at the picture, and tell me you think the cop was wrong. The charge was violating the law on the handling of gasoline. This moron poured 150 gallons of gasoline into regular Home Depot buckets. By the time he was arrested, the tops of the covers were bulging. Yeah, that's dangerous because gasoline burns... and gasoline vapors EXPLODE.
You are definitely correct about the nature of the charge.
All the same, don't you think that perhaps during a crisis/emergency people may have their reasons to take their chances? You would never, ever take a higher risk in order to provide something essential to yourself, your family, and your neighbors and community? Never ever? Honestly, if I could, I would. I'd manage the increased risk as well as possible (store it away from people, etc) but sometimes you do what you have to do, even if you don't really want to. I wish I had neighbors like him, who would think of other people and try to provide for them even if that means taking a legal risk.
Understand, if he did this during a normal time of no crises at all, I would agree that he was a moron and I would agree that he should be punished. But this was a crisis and he was looking out for other people as well as himself. I believe he weighed the options and made his choices accordingly. Sometimes adverse circumstances alter what you would normally do. If you have never before been in a serious situation where the shit was really hitting the fan, then you don't know what it's like. Sometimes you are forced to do what is expedient and sometimes we as Americans go so long without ever really knowing what this is all about that we feel too comfortable making armchair judgments about the intelligence of those who have been there.
There was no real intent here to violate a law. The man was merely using what he had available. If he had had flawless, approved containers for that much gasoline, do you not think he would have used them? Laws made during times of plenty should be reconsidered when people become desperate, with the only caveat being that no force or fraud was involved in this "crime".
Gasoline vapors are dangerous as hell, but they don't explode without a source of ignition. While I agree that there are better and safer ways to store and transfer gasoline, what was the alternative? No fuel at all during a time when it's cold and grid power is down? Should he have told his neighbors "well as much as I would like to share lots of gasoline with you, I lack an approved container, so all of you are screwed, tough luck?" What would you do?
Ever seen the movie Alive? Are you suggesting the survivors should all have been charged with incorrect handling of a dead human body? Because that is against the law, you know. Do you want a total law-and-order society that a computer could implement? Or could we perhaps consider basic survival as a form of coercion that quite legitimately makes people take options they would not normally consider? I have no problem with that, so long as no force or fraud is used to victimize another person (there is never an excuse for that, ever). That was the case here.
Umm, no. His crime was filling 30 5-gallon Home Depot buckets with gas, because Home Depot buckets are not made for or approved for holding/transporting gasoline. But don't let that get in the way of your (and the GP's) conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories? Maybe there is a conspiracy preventing you from comprehending what you read. See the post I originally replied to? Well, you see, it contained this line:
The big screw up on his side was putting it in non-gas approved containers, but the charge was actually hoarding supplies.
Feel free to peruse the original post to which I replied, if you don't believe me.
The charge was hoarding supplies. The charge was NOT incorrect containers for gasoline (which I agree is a bad, unsafe idea but as I have now spelled out for you, is completely irrelevant).
And really, man, conspiracy theory? Really?? Are you so desperately clutching at straws as to pull out that one? You really cannot see how the irrational inability of so many people to deal with reality might make its way into law? No? You can't? Then why did (and do) so many states have laws against having sex in any position other than missionary? Why do so many old state laws define a blowjob as "sodomy" and punish it? Why was Prohibition ever enacted, and why does a form of it continue today in the War On (some) Drugs? Why do we have perpetual copyright laws that were bought and paid for?
Conspiracy? Hardly. It is not a conspiracy to suggest that in a government which aims to be representative, some of the laws (especially the ones that make no sense) are going to reflect the irrational tendencies of many people. A bunch of powerful, wealthy men did not have to meet in a smoky room to make that happen. Unfortunately it happens all by itself unless carefully guarded against. It is, in fact, a form of entropy. You might as well tell me that your own aging process is a conspiracy.
God damn, I remember when the average Slashdotter actually knew how to formulate an argument. Those were the days. Look, I will let you in on something you seem to be having problems seeing on your own. Your feelings are not to be trusted. That's right. Your feelings are emotions. Emotions are not rational by their nature. Some emotions are more valid than others, but emotions are in a different domain from reason. Reason is how you make good decisions and make statements worth reading. Yes, your emotions can feel SO REAL and SO CONVINCING to you... but if they are inconsistent with reason, that's your sign that you are about to make a bullshit argument.
It's ridiculously, trivially, childishly simple. Unless you just don't want to accept it and want to get angry with me for pointing it out. Then you will complicate it and swear that its nature is inherently complex. It is not.
Because that isn't selling something at an excessive price. Just because I'm not allowed to sell you something at an excessive price doesn't mean i have to give it to you.
While technically correct, you miss the entire point. Doing that does seem popular around here. It's like the average Slashdotter thinks that missing the point entirely is the most effective way to disagree with it. Well, that's not so. Moving on...
The point is, great concern about whether two adults should be engaged in a voluntary market transaction is not so different from concern about whether two adults should be engaged in a charitable donation.
Both involve an active micromanagement of the financial affairs of people who are not using force and not using fraud. The principles which justify one could easily be used to justify the other. If you believe those principles are valid, then the news crew should have been forced to yield their generators to people who needed it. If you believe those principles are invalid, then the government has no business concerning itself with what the price of a market should be.
Haha I was thinking something similar. They're after price gougers in the aftermath of a natural disaster, but the everyday gougers walk free.
Some nanny state.
An emergency situation lowers the barriers to entry; now anyone with a little foresight who can plan ahead (a minority, but anyone who wants to can do it) can do it. But it's spontaneous and it isn't business as usual. So it stands out.
Everyday gougers tend to be politically connected. They tend to have lobbyists. The very finest example is the RIAA - once an initial investment is made, their cost to make perfect copies is marginal at most. The rest is entirely artificial scarcity. So they made certain to acquire political clout. So not only are they left alone by the law, they are actively assisted by it. That's the difference.
This attorney general is essentially pandering to a popular cause. The problem is not that some are profiting by delivering supplies purchased at the very last possible minute. No, the problem is that so many people wait until the very last minute to prepare for such an event. Otherwise there would be little to no demand for such services.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes those evil lawyers. Fucking slashdot with its predictable "commentary."
Lawyers are one of the few priesthoods left in Western society. The purpose of a priesthood is to guard information from the uninitiated, so that most people are dependent on the priests.
The Catholic Church of medieval times really hated the idea of a Bible written in the native languages of the laypeople. They preferred Latin, a language that was generally taught only to the clergy at that time. If there is ever a movement to simplify the law and remove the legalese, so that the average person could easily understand and apply it without professional help, you will see a similar outcry from the lawyers.
The difference between a lawyer and a doctor is that the human body is inherently complex. The law is only so complex because men have made it so.
The cynic in me sometimes wonders if this is something they do on purpose. Publish new outrageous terms of service and then wait for the internet to explode. Wait a few hours more and then come on with a ready appology. A lot of people have enough invested in a particular site that they won't leave right away, and with an appropriate "apology" are molified. And a lot of exposure is thus gained. But given that other competitors are ready to swoop in, the other part of me dismisses it.
That tactic is used in politics all the time, particularly whenever the desire is to expand government. Float an idea and pretend like there's any real debate about what you are going to do anyway. It gives the illusion of legitimacy. If there is a lot of backlash, do it over time in baby steps with carefully crafted excuses as justification; if not, just go for it.
20 innocent lives snuffed out in Connecticut, and yet you continue to breathe our air. This is proof that there is no God.
It is proof that small-minded people want to blame (their concept of) God for what man has done.
I think I know what you want. You want a micromanaging God that doesn't ever let us make any of our own choices. That way nothing bad ever happens. That is a God you could believe in, with none of that messy faith stuff, right? Just like your other emotionally childish counterparts want a God-like Government that can take away all the guns because they are cowards, cowards love easy wrong answers, so they blame inanimate objects for what people do. That may be drugs, guns, video games, music, movies, you name it: these people are themselves so dehumanized and shallow that the human element is the very first thing they want to deny.
It ain't gonna work. Certain drugs are completely illegal in all circumstances. Guess what? They can't even keep them out of PRISONS. Perhaps a lot of people didn't know that? Maybe they hadn't researched the feasibility of this idea? No one who has looked into it thinks it's realistic. Lots of people who can't distinguish emotion from reason, who really don't know anything about the topic, think it's just great. What a coincidence. Maybe you could ponder that for a little while.
Now if you can grasp a general principle when you see one and realize that it applies to more than one thing, perhaps it will dawn on you that banning guns won't work either. It makes sense too. This shooting was done by a psychopath who obviously wasn't worried about dying and obviously wasn't worried about mass murder charges. Gee, I wonder if a weapons violation charge is going to deter him? Yeah, that DOES sound silly, now doesn't it? Good, the ability to face a harsh reality is the mark of adulthood.
I am glad you are not going to get what you want. The adults don't want to be stuck in your little playpen. Yes, 20 people were murdered. In fact the death toll was a bit higher than that. Is hating a troll going to bring them back? Is there, in fact, anything at all that you and I or anyone else could do to reverse what has been done? No, there isn't. But there are a lot of rash mistakes with long-lasting consequences that we could make. There are also lots of petty little ways that we could find reasons to hate each other. Do you think that either of those would honor the dead?
Speaking of small-minded people, I suppose it's time for them to call me names and express their impotent outrage because I said something they don't agree with. Knowing no better way, that is how they handle such things. It gives them a whole moment of feeling self-important before they come right back down to the life they have to live.
Too many !!
I think you could have a career in politics.
If happy = dumbass, I'd rather be bitter, thank you very much.
False dichotomy. You limit yourself by viewing it in such narrow terms. It leaves no allowance for beauty.
One can be intelligent and supremely joyful in this life. The bitterness and resentment are the prime reasons you don't see that yourself.
Yes I am responding late but perhaps you will read this anyway.
Google isn't the perpetrator.
They are just making it easier to find the perpetrator.
THAT is who you should sue or prosecute.
And, does anyone else see the (huge) potential problem with the perception that "if Google doesn't list it, it does not exist"? They don't need to be even further entrenched.
i would prefer a moderate religious person over an atheist zealot, any day
What exactly is the definition of an "atheist zealot"? Asking for positive evidence sounds perfectly reasonable to me, especially whenever what those people profess is only one of a large number of equally likely alternatives. That's just simple logic of reasoning to me.
Well, he could start by not implicitly linking a few psychopaths who USE BOMBS AND MURDER OTHERS with those who go to church or have their own personal beliefs. He is not asking for evidence to satisfy his own inquiry. That would be a separate discussion. He's simply expressing his hatred and mockery of anyone who entertains beliefs he finds distasteful.
Blaming all religion (and he made no distinction) for the problems in Pakistan is like never eating food again because someone was choking.
This one is apparently wasted on him, but maybe you will appreciate it. I am not an atheist, yet I feel no need to mock, disrespect, denigrate, or look down my nose at anyone who chooses to be an atheist. To me that is a personal decision. If a person wants my input, they will have to ask me specifically. Otherwise, it's none of my damned business what they believe. I should treat other people with the dignity and respect they deserve no matter what I think about their faith or lack of faith.
That is what you are not seeing from the GP. He does not appear to be an atheist because he found no religion to be satisfying or believable. He appears to be an atheist so he can pat himself on the back for being better than all those "morons" who don't see things his way. What a miserable way to be. I assure you, no one who lives like that can be truly joyful and happy, not in any enduring sort of way. Their happiness depends on what other people do.
Sorry but ALL religion is insidious and evil. It is a means of control for the unintelligent and mentally lazy.
With organized religion there is some truth to that.
... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ignoring the progress made by those who came before means you are doomed to constantly reinvent the wheel.
When an individual is seeking a way to express the more abstract parts of his or her nature, what is called spirituality, and finds that some of the best real teachers had one "persuasion" or another but tend to all say very similar things, as though they all saw the same things and put them in different terms according to different frameworks
The trick any real individual understands is to not get caught up with any particular language or framework, to instead focus on what truly advanced people have seen or done. It's the difference between looking at the finger that points, versus seeing the heavenly constellation it tries to point out.
Obviously individuals who really grok this tend not to herd together in large congregations with bylaws and conventions and someone to take the meeting minutes. For the most part, that is for the insecure who need to be surrounded by the like-minded to feel validated. Thus anyone who seriously questions or objects is a sort of threat. I for one say fuck that.
So what you're saying is that the UN votes should be weighted based on how democratic they are? The US barely makes the top 20 in that regard (Democracy Index.)
The right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if that might give "our team"* something to think about.
* No, I don't think that way because it's mindless, but nonetheless it's all too common.
Yeah, sure, he has identified the pattern *rolleyes*
It's not like it's been a meme forever or something. Dumbass.
Your comment amused me, because I know just how much you make yourself suffer by being so bitter.
Perhaps one day you'll recognize that this is beneath you.
Microsoft sees that they need to get into the "app" market to increase their profits, so they make a platform that puts "apps" first.
Then, logically, their worst fear would be that apps become more portable so that the underlying OS becomes increasingly irrelevant. They don't see that as an eventuality if they continue along this course?
Microsoft traditionally has removed options from users in subsequent OS changes, Windows 8 is the next progression of it.
Yeah. I disagree with it strongly, but there is certainly a school of thought that prefers to remove options because it might confuse us "stupid users", rather than implement those options in a more robust and transparent way.
How can you encourage people to upgrade if the UI looks the same? It would be much harder to do that.
By not treating them like complete idiots and explaining that changes made "under the hood" are important too. Yes, I know that's unrealistic but that's how it could easily be done. Only, this entire industry has invested so much in the opposite form of marketing that at this point, it would be a shock to the average customer.
I personally supplement Windows XP and 7 with tweaks that make it easy to do multiple things (VirtuaWin for multiple desktops, Find and Run robot for quickly opening programs, Winsplit Revolution for moving application windows to predefined areas, WizMouse for scrolling windows not in focus). I wish I could easily do all of those in Linux, but so far, it seems it would require a good amount of work to get it to work.
Two of those are standard features of X (VirtuaWin, WizMouse). What Winsplit Revolution does is handled by some window managers. But generally the best way to do multiple things in *nix is with the command line, which is really simple and straightforward if you know how to use it. Most GUI applications take command-line arguments or have command-line versions that make this very easy. I am not trying to talk you out of your preference (leave that for the zealots), just pointing out that Windows doesn't have a monopoly on those things. That's a good thing no matter which OS you use.
What was Microsoft thinking? Thinking had nothing to do with it; they had no choice.
See, Windows 98 SE was followed by Windows Me, which sucked more. Windows Me was followed by Windows XP, which sucked less. Windows XP was followed by Windows Vista, which sucked more. Windows Vista was followed by Windows 7, which sucked less.
Windows 7 accordingly had to be followed by a "sucked more" release.
Heh that's pretty funny (because it's true). I believe you have identified the pattern!
... I don't like Microsoft one bit, but I would compromise my objectivity if I didn't admit that they have some seriously talented employees who really could do better. Is it that they don't want to break this pattern? Maybe they think a combination of vendorlock and "next one will be better really!" increases sales more than consistent improvements could? Or are they simply a one-trick pony in this regard?
Still
I see a lot of otherwise successful companies make a lot of dumb decisions, things I could have told them were a bad idea. I assume that maybe at least one of these two possibilities is true: what you have to do to become an executive selects for a certain mentality and that one mentality only, with very little diversity of thought; or, once you get to such a position it becomes so abstract and you are surrounded by so many yes-men that it completely distorts your view of reality.
Considering that people who will do anything for positions of authority overwhelmingly tend to be sociopaths, it could be as simple as the sociopaths' inability to sincerely admit error and reverse course when it is appropriate to do so. They'd rather convince everyone else that there was no error.
I guess msft read the recent reports of abysmal sales for Windows 8 and decided to use its proven strategy of promoting piracy of Windows to drive up adoption.
I really don't understand what they're doing with Win 8.
I recently bought a netbook that came with Windows 7. I strongly prefer Linux, so it wasn't very long before I repartitioned the drive and installed the OS of my choice. But before I did that, I decided to gave Windows 7 a try, just for the hell of it. I was a bit impressed, actually.
I generally don't like the Windows way of doing things. I prefer the transparency of a *nix system, the storage of important settings in plain text files, the central package manager instead of being nagged about updates for lots of individual programs, the way I don't need malware scanners, the ease with which open source programs can be modified and studied, the fact that drivers are generally maintained with the kernel and not by third parties, the power of the command line, the ease of automation and scripting, the huge variety of choices for graphical desktop, the simple fact that my Linux distro of choice (Gentoo) doesn't assume I'm clueless and thus doesn't get in my way, the ease with which I can find out what caused a problem and fix it and it stays fixed, and the general Open Source philosophy.
Those things about Windows that I don't like are not going to change anytime soon. So it's just not for me. But, having said all that, when I tried Windows 7 I thought that Windows had come a long way. It was stable, solid, and slick. It seemed to me to be what most people wanted: a highly improved and polished XP.
Then I learn about Windows 8 and I'm wondering what the hell the people at Microsoft are thinking. It's as though they want to sabotage themselves. What do they hope to gain here? Is it just that the days of Win 9x made them too arrogant and they don't appreciate that people have more options now? Or what? I haven't seen them pull something like this since either Microsoft Bob or Windows Millenium.
As far as I know Microsoft *does* have a strong interested in being pirated in those jurisdictions in which they are not going to sell much anything. It's a question of market share and staying the monopolist.
Imagine if Microsoft openly acknowledged that and stopped pretending that all piracy is always bad for them. In fact they could even give a certain number of copies away, legitimately, in those jurisdictions and justify it by the many ways they benefit from increased marketshare. I wonder how other software companies (not to mention related copyright interests like the *AAs) would react. It would be interesting to see how they try to spin it.
I've got mod points, and would mod the comment "Informative" since most of the statement deserves it - but that "OK, you're a moron" comment you chose to include at the beginning really has no place in intelligent discourse.
I do see your point but I don't fully agree with it. When I mod a post up, I do it because I believe it is a net positive contribution. I might not like everything about it, but I think that its virtues outweigh its faults. I'm trying to promote interesting discussion a lot more than I'm trying to "punish" poor taste.
Besides, if someone makes a useful point but also makes an ass of himself, everyone who reads it will see that for themselves. They don't need me to parse that for them (and if they do, they have bigger problems). If it gets highly rated, even more people will see that he made an ass of himself. It balances out.
I use a distribution (Gentoo) which has "slots" for many packages like GTK. It fixes this problem neatly. The slots system means you can concurrently install two different versions of a package and they both work. It does not require the use of filesystem namespaces or any other such technique.
/usr/lib64/gtk-2.0 and the other in /usr/lib64/gtk-3.0. Not every package is slotted but things like GTK+ certainly are.
I have both GTK+-2.24.12 and GTK+-3.4.4 installed right now. Each is in its own slot. One resides in
Gentoo is a source-based distro and a given program is linked against whichever one it needs at the time it is compiled, but there is no reason a binary distribution couldn't do the same (it would only be a matter of who is doing the compilation). It's simple, it's neat, and it works. I have no idea why this isn't more common.
"This attorney general is essentially pandering to a popular cause."
Well... given that, (shifting gears here), it's still a bad thing because pandering to "The Cause of the Day" is the worst kind of politics, and the source of much of our recent loss of freedom... regardless of the actual motive of the panderers. I know there is a good historical quote about this but I did not find it after a short look. I will have to hunt it up for my collection.
I like reading your posts and have generally felt like they were worthwhile. I would enjoy seeing this quote if you manage to find it.
And I know what you mean about having a collection. My quotes file is a plain text file over 55k in size. Whenever I encounter a good one, I add it to that file. Over the years it's grown.
See this is the bullshit. Why is this jackwad getting a 1 from some slashdot fairy for engaging in mindless partisan bomb throwing? What he wrote is approved group think so he (or she) get a pat on the head?
It is easier when you understand that much of this comes from the frustration of never really feeling represented by anyone in Washington. Especially when the facts are so well-established and becoming more and more obvious. Copyright is just such an issue.
The War on (some) Drugs is another such issue. What that and copyright have in common is that the current laws just aren't working, this is obvious and well-known to anyone who looks into it, and there is no serious effort underway to reform the system.
He even labelled his comments as "sarcasm" and said he would like to be proven wrong. He was rather transparent about it. That's why the context surrounding it must also be considered, otherwise you really would just think he's engaging in mindless partisanism.
Seems like you have a closed mind. You're all-knowledgeable about what people who don't share your beliefs stand for. Are you unique in this world? I sure don't have the ability to get into the minds of people whose views I oppose. Yet somehow you can.
You must be a liberal.
Maybe he does have a closed mind, maybe he doesn't.
But you definitely should not be against something until you understand it.
I don't know what it is about these people. Don't they feel a bit of disgust trying to get in the way of someone who is, unlike them, trying to do something cool with their lives?
They do, but they blame that on whoever is trying to do something cool. That's what denial looks like. It's a reiteration of the emotional immaturity that has become so widespread.
... by torturing people to death. Yeah I know that might seem a bit inconsistent with an actual reading of the words of Christ ... but this way they "win" and the victim "loses" so they must have been "right"! And of course dead people stop saying things you find inconvenient. It's "might makes right" mixed with "shoot the messenger".
Now they have to try even harder to shut them down, or else they'll be disgusted with the ineffectiveness of their disgust. There's potentially no end to how many layers of denial can be heaped on it. When people falsely think they are justified, they really badly need to win no matter how much they don't deserve to. Not getting what they want would mean losing face by making it more obvious they were not justified. You can see this pattern everywhere.
It's the same reason the Inquisition decided to spread the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ
This is the courtroom version of the same little ego games. If these dealers were a bit more humble they'd recognize that they might be looking at their own future, and the time to invest in it is now. Unlike trying to halt inevitable progress, this is something that might work. But they are "right" in their own eyes and the other guy must necessarily be "wrong". So the court battle begins.
Why is parent modded at -1? Seriously, just look around and play with them wtf?
Acting helpless is the new(er) status symbol. Handholding you didn't need makes a statement. It says you deserve to be served - you have people for that. Of course intellectual laziness is also a popular development, which oddly seems to get worse and worse as information becomes more and more instantly available.
... and someone's self-importance will be offended by it. Perhaps they will twist what I said to insult me in some manner, or act like I've done something horriby evil by pointing this out. That would be most boring and unsurprising.
The vitriol that comes out of some people when you dare to suggest that they can handle something independently is amazing. "Hey, you're bright enough and resourceful enough to do this all by yourself" is a compliment. Not reinforcing someone's codependency is a good thing. The anger and vitriol, then, requires an explanation. The anger comes from not paying tribute, not agreeing with the sense of entitlement.
Not encouraging such a character weakness makes you a bad person, somehow. You'll be told how smug and elitist you are, etc. All of the negative feedback is designed to make you cave and pay tribute anyway. After all, you didn't go along with their self-importance so you must be punished. As though someone who says "I am capable of this, and so are you" is being elitist! It's actually an egalitarian position.
This paragraph is for the small-minded who invent things to rail against that were not said. Obviously, if someone makes a sincere effort and gets stumped that's different. That happens to everyone sometimes. But this does not require any complex skill or specialized knowledge. Basic literacy and a few minutes are the only resources this person would need in order to answer his own question. He demonstrated both just by asking the question, so we know he has them. Wanting help for that is a highly indirect (thus deniable) way of saying his time is more valuable than yours or mine.
Once you know yourself well enough to see (and thus, stop) these petty ego mechanisms within your own psychology, you will start to see them everywhere in others as well. The horrifying part is how universally accepted and unquestioned it is. It doesn't take very much introspection or contemplation to understand these things. What it does take is some kind of inner life to balance out the constant hectic worry about externals like work, bills, the economy, politics, and this-and-that. Otherwise there is no basis for comparison.
The annoying part is that everything I said above is straightforward
Please read this article, look at the picture, and tell me you think the cop was wrong. The charge was violating the law on the handling of gasoline. This moron poured 150 gallons of gasoline into regular Home Depot buckets. By the time he was arrested, the tops of the covers were bulging. Yeah, that's dangerous because gasoline burns ... and gasoline vapors EXPLODE.
You are definitely correct about the nature of the charge.
All the same, don't you think that perhaps during a crisis/emergency people may have their reasons to take their chances? You would never, ever take a higher risk in order to provide something essential to yourself, your family, and your neighbors and community? Never ever? Honestly, if I could, I would. I'd manage the increased risk as well as possible (store it away from people, etc) but sometimes you do what you have to do, even if you don't really want to. I wish I had neighbors like him, who would think of other people and try to provide for them even if that means taking a legal risk.
Understand, if he did this during a normal time of no crises at all, I would agree that he was a moron and I would agree that he should be punished. But this was a crisis and he was looking out for other people as well as himself. I believe he weighed the options and made his choices accordingly. Sometimes adverse circumstances alter what you would normally do. If you have never before been in a serious situation where the shit was really hitting the fan, then you don't know what it's like. Sometimes you are forced to do what is expedient and sometimes we as Americans go so long without ever really knowing what this is all about that we feel too comfortable making armchair judgments about the intelligence of those who have been there.
There was no real intent here to violate a law. The man was merely using what he had available. If he had had flawless, approved containers for that much gasoline, do you not think he would have used them? Laws made during times of plenty should be reconsidered when people become desperate, with the only caveat being that no force or fraud was involved in this "crime".
Gasoline vapors are dangerous as hell, but they don't explode without a source of ignition. While I agree that there are better and safer ways to store and transfer gasoline, what was the alternative? No fuel at all during a time when it's cold and grid power is down? Should he have told his neighbors "well as much as I would like to share lots of gasoline with you, I lack an approved container, so all of you are screwed, tough luck?" What would you do?
Ever seen the movie Alive? Are you suggesting the survivors should all have been charged with incorrect handling of a dead human body? Because that is against the law, you know. Do you want a total law-and-order society that a computer could implement? Or could we perhaps consider basic survival as a form of coercion that quite legitimately makes people take options they would not normally consider? I have no problem with that, so long as no force or fraud is used to victimize another person (there is never an excuse for that, ever). That was the case here.
Umm, no. His crime was filling 30 5-gallon Home Depot buckets with gas, because Home Depot buckets are not made for or approved for holding/transporting gasoline. But don't let that get in the way of your (and the GP's) conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories? Maybe there is a conspiracy preventing you from comprehending what you read. See the post I originally replied to? Well, you see, it contained this line:
The big screw up on his side was putting it in non-gas approved containers, but the charge was actually hoarding supplies.
Feel free to peruse the original post to which I replied, if you don't believe me. The charge was hoarding supplies. The charge was NOT incorrect containers for gasoline (which I agree is a bad, unsafe idea but as I have now spelled out for you, is completely irrelevant).
And really, man, conspiracy theory? Really?? Are you so desperately clutching at straws as to pull out that one? You really cannot see how the irrational inability of so many people to deal with reality might make its way into law? No? You can't? Then why did (and do) so many states have laws against having sex in any position other than missionary? Why do so many old state laws define a blowjob as "sodomy" and punish it? Why was Prohibition ever enacted, and why does a form of it continue today in the War On (some) Drugs? Why do we have perpetual copyright laws that were bought and paid for?
Conspiracy? Hardly. It is not a conspiracy to suggest that in a government which aims to be representative, some of the laws (especially the ones that make no sense) are going to reflect the irrational tendencies of many people. A bunch of powerful, wealthy men did not have to meet in a smoky room to make that happen. Unfortunately it happens all by itself unless carefully guarded against. It is, in fact, a form of entropy. You might as well tell me that your own aging process is a conspiracy.
God damn, I remember when the average Slashdotter actually knew how to formulate an argument. Those were the days. Look, I will let you in on something you seem to be having problems seeing on your own. Your feelings are not to be trusted. That's right. Your feelings are emotions. Emotions are not rational by their nature. Some emotions are more valid than others, but emotions are in a different domain from reason. Reason is how you make good decisions and make statements worth reading. Yes, your emotions can feel SO REAL and SO CONVINCING to you... but if they are inconsistent with reason, that's your sign that you are about to make a bullshit argument.
It's ridiculously, trivially, childishly simple. Unless you just don't want to accept it and want to get angry with me for pointing it out. Then you will complicate it and swear that its nature is inherently complex. It is not.
Because that isn't selling something at an excessive price. Just because I'm not allowed to sell you something at an excessive price doesn't mean i have to give it to you.
While technically correct, you miss the entire point. Doing that does seem popular around here. It's like the average Slashdotter thinks that missing the point entirely is the most effective way to disagree with it. Well, that's not so. Moving on ...
The point is, great concern about whether two adults should be engaged in a voluntary market transaction is not so different from concern about whether two adults should be engaged in a charitable donation.
Both involve an active micromanagement of the financial affairs of people who are not using force and not using fraud. The principles which justify one could easily be used to justify the other. If you believe those principles are valid, then the news crew should have been forced to yield their generators to people who needed it. If you believe those principles are invalid, then the government has no business concerning itself with what the price of a market should be.
Haha I was thinking something similar. They're after price gougers in the aftermath of a natural disaster, but the everyday gougers walk free. Some nanny state.
An emergency situation lowers the barriers to entry; now anyone with a little foresight who can plan ahead (a minority, but anyone who wants to can do it) can do it. But it's spontaneous and it isn't business as usual. So it stands out.
Everyday gougers tend to be politically connected. They tend to have lobbyists. The very finest example is the RIAA - once an initial investment is made, their cost to make perfect copies is marginal at most. The rest is entirely artificial scarcity. So they made certain to acquire political clout. So not only are they left alone by the law, they are actively assisted by it. That's the difference.
This attorney general is essentially pandering to a popular cause. The problem is not that some are profiting by delivering supplies purchased at the very last possible minute. No, the problem is that so many people wait until the very last minute to prepare for such an event. Otherwise there would be little to no demand for such services.