That OS X has a UNIX console is one of its strengths when talking about UNIX professionals moving to OS X so I don't know why you're holding it up as a negative.
I have used OS X as a Linux Administrator before I missed 2 things that made me get a Linux box at work - middle-click paste and kde io-slaves (fish:// in Kate, so really I missed Kate). However, I never considered OS X 'crippled to the point of being not useful.' Assuming you're not just trolling, what exactly was wrong with OS X for you.
I don't personally consider OSX to be crippled. I do wonder one thing, though.
As someone very satisfied with Linux, what would OSX offer me? Any "Unix professional" can handle Linux. This isn't someone who is afraid of the command line, or of making technical decisions. That alone destroys most of the appeal of OSX (a system that has worked beautifully for several non-techies I know who didn't want to deal with those things). For me, moving to OSX would mean gaining nothing I don't already have, plus having to pay a premium for it. I also very much value software freedom as implemented by the GPL, and I don't believe Apple is willing to negotiate on that one.
What would possibly make me consider OSX? I assume I am well outside of their target market, but I am willing to consider your answer.
Because some emotionally volatile cunt of a moderator didn't like the way it sounded. Egos think they're "God", egos take everything personally, and you don't offend "God" or you face "God's" wrath.
You know how you cannot criticize a politician on genuine, factual grounds without some moron piping up and saying "yeah, well, Politician X from the Opposite Party did something bad too, so nyaa!" as though that made your original criticism any less valid? I think they say "huh? WHAT?! That's MY TEAM they're criticizing. Quick, activate Us vs. Them mode, NOW! Whatever you do, don't logically refute any of it!"
Yeah, anyway... somebody just did that with X. A down-mod was their way to avoid logically refuting it. Or admitting that they can't.
I wish there were an accurate way to identify people like this. Then we can give them the status of second-class citizens, barring them from ever holding any political office or other position of authority. They're just not emotionally mature enough to be trusted with those things.
Linux is not for the lazy....plain and simple. It's for people that when they have a problem, they can use their brain cells, observe the problem and try to solve it, if it doesn't work, they ask for help...nicely since the linux community (like me) are not paid to do so...were happy to help that's all
I very much respect and appreciate the concept that the more I am willing to put into something, the more I will get out of it. That's about as fair and equitable as it gets. In fact I wish more things in life worked that way.
You're right about laziness. This topic just provides an illustration, a focal point for a more general and unfortunate trend. In the USA there is definitely an anti-intellectual, passive, back-seat way of life that's become popular. It's somehow cool to be ignorant, helpless, and intellectually lazy. Lots of people will validate it. The guy who says you could expect better of yourself is somehow an asshole, I guess for telling you that you're more capable than you know, for not supporting the culture of self-limitation.
The message that you can not only understand, but also master, anything you put your mind to is more unwelcome now than it ever has been. I suppose because people love having excuses for why they can't do something, and this message threatens (to them) to take those excuses away. If you were younger and worked a service-type job where you had to deal with the general public, you know precisely how helpless adult people choose to be. They will ask you where something is when they're standing right in front of it, because crying for help is easy while observing what's in plain view is harder (for them). I could name countless examples like that.
I could say I make at least a small effort to help myself and only when that fails do I look for help from others because I don't secretly my time is more precious to me than someone else's time is to them, like the childish self-centered people do. But that's only the surface of it. Look at bit deeper and what you will see are people who are their own worst enemies, who limit themselves needlessly, and think you're launching a personal attack when you suggest however politely that they don't have to. They're very sensitive about it because they know it won't withstand examination. Somehow that's not reason enough to change it, for them.
This amounts to large numbers of passive, helpless people who are forever denied the discovery of their own personal genius. It's a nuisance but more than that, it's quite a tragedy.
Computing just brings it into the foreground because it's a machine. It won't humor or coddle someone. It won't work just to make someone feel better. It only works when it's used correctly. That's precisely where the anti-intellectualism runs into problems.
So before you said idiot things like that (like always) remember that windows, mac and all other operating systems are not perfect and they do have their fair share of problems.
They certainly do. There are lots of Windows problems and Windows forums. Windows isn't the automatic slam-dunk of usability that some might claim. You still have to learn how to use it. With Windows there is at least some expectation that you should get some support because you have purchased it, but average home users probably aren't getting this from Microsoft. They are probably going to the OEM, or paying a local computer shop.
Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population.
Am I the only one who doesn't see that as a problem?
Average users who don't want to learn new things about their systems are already well represented. They have several good options. What's so wrong with an OS for those who like learning and want to understand how the system works?
As a long-time Linux user, why would I feel a need for the masses to join me? I'm fine with people choosing what suits them best. I don't need them to choose what I choose. I like the choices I made in a way that doesn't depend on what someone else does.
Linux already has what it needs: enough of a userbase that there is active development and the attention of various companies which can contribute. I don't want it to become so thoroughly obscure as to lose that, because that is a good thing. I for one feel no need to "beat Microsoft", as though popularity indicated quality. Anyone who has seriously considered that question has already observed that it frequently indicates the opposite.
Why does Linux need tons of non-technical users who are unlikely to appreciate and understand the Open Source ethic? So that companies will include Linux drivers by default with hardware you buy? I've personally never had problems getting hardware to work, but then the correct way to do this is to match the hardware to the OS. Doing that, I found I had a very wide selection of hardware covering a large range of prices and capabilities. If that's what drives the desire to "go mainstream" more than Linux already has, it seems designed to solve what is not actually a problem. If that's not what drives this urge, then what does?
In the absence of facts supporting their position, using the term "racist" as a weapon is all they have.
You mean like the fact that the quoted study was conducted on a prison population?
The question is, how does that compare to the recidivism rate of legal citizens who committed similar crimes? And among people who were willing to break the law just to trespass here (and that's what they are, trespassers, same as I would be if I snuck into Mexico), how much respect for our laws were you expecting them to have?
And what is that "one correct conclusion", oh great enlightened master? Let me guess, it aligns well with you political idealogy, and is generally agreeable to the body of your preexisting views and biases?
That the laws on the books, concerning immigration and anything else, should either be enforced or repealed. Is that biased enough for you?
Of course, by assuming that I must be biased against someone or something, you are confirming my point. Some kind of accusation of bias of some kind is like a hammer to so many, and by God everything suddenly looks just like a nail. Maybe if you just keep trying hard enough it will finally work?
It's like you were doing this: "Hmm. Don't like what that guy said - check. Have to portray him as biased, bigoted, or just plain unpleasant because heaven forbid two adults have a conversation about a national issue without making it personal - check. Muddy the water with "human issues" and "both sides of the equation" when concepts like "rule of law" are so damned simple - check."
Tell you what. If you truly want to be as unbiased and fair as possible, I have a proposal. Let's follow Mexico's lead and do it the way they do it! Let's harmonize our immigration laws to match theirs, the same way that copyright laws are harmonized among various nations. If you support illegal immigration, you wouldn't like that one damned bit. But it would be so unbiased!
I still don't understand why States need to enforce federal laws.
If the federal government doesn't want to enforce laws, that's because they have a reason to - no need for states to get involved in international affairs.
(The answer is: Americans want illegal immigration to continue)
Because most of the law enforcement and other government services that are expended because of illegal aliens happen at the state and local levels. It's easy for the federal government to be lazy here because the federal politicians get the support for looking the other way AND they're not the ones bearing the burden of it. You might as well ask why a heavily-polluting industry doesn't want anti-pollution laws to be enforced.
And no, most Americans don't want illegal immigration to continue. I know a very vocal minority likes to portray their view as representative of the general population but it isn't. The only ones who benefit from it are: big businesses who like paying lower wages, the Republican candidates they tend to sponsor, and Democrat candidates who score points with their base by pandering to the Hispanic minority.
Most people are not majority shareholders in large corporations. Most people are not Republican federal politicians receiving campaign contributions. Most people are not federal Democrat politicians receiving votes from well-meaning but stupid people who feel good about making everything a racial issue only because they happen to be on the privileged side of this particular one.
The vast majority of Americans gain nothing from this at all. The legal American citizens who live in places with large illegal alien populations not only fail to gain, but lose a lot. They lose in the form of lower wages, higher crime, language barriers, and money leaving their local communities because it's being sent to relatives in foreign nations. When it turns out they don't want to be exploited like this, they're told about how "racist" they are for not liking it, just to add some insult to injury. They're pretty damned tired of it. Do you blame them? Those legal American citizens are the hosts, while the federal political machine that benefits from this is the parasite.
They're politically fighting back at the state level because they have no voice at all on the federal level. They can't outclass the corporate sponsorship on the Republican side. Meanwhile the Democrat party will never give up its obsession with dividing people by race because playing various racial/ethnic groups against each other is how they get many of their votes. So the people are taking the options that are still available to them. All you are seeing here is that the people are better represented in state and local governments than they could ever dream of being in the federal government. This is nothing new.
Again, do you blame them? It's all easy to play armchair critic and forget that this is a direct response to a real problem.
Yes, and it makes sense. But do you have to carry it around, in case a cop decides to question your legal status in the US?
The article title says... "Arizona H-1B Workers Advised to Carry Papers At All Times" (emphasis mine).
In Arizona, having a valid driver's license provides a presumption of citizenship. The cops can inquire about citizenship if someone is pulled over at a traffic stop, or arrested because they are suspected of a crime. Now, if they're driving, they're supposed to have a license anyway. If they are arrested for a crime, documentation will be the least of their worries. I don't see a problem here.
As for as H-1B workers who might be passengers, AND don't have driver's licenses? The people of Arizona, through their representatives, have decided that some extra hassle attached to this edge case is a worthy trade-off in return for being able to do something about the serious illegal immigration problem they are experiencing. The people of Arizona have this right, as the courts have rightly upheld. It is their state.
Foreign workers are like guests in their home and it's about time this became more widely recognized. If you are a guest in my home, you will be treated with kindness and all of your civil rights will be respected because that's a minimum standard of decency. But if you bitch, complain, try to tell me how I should live, demand I accept trespassers, or in any way don't like being there, then you can kindly get the fuck out. This is the same thing at a larger scale, that's all.
I don't personally like every law on the books of every state myself, but I accept them and abide by them. If those H-1B workers truly have a problem with the law, and don't consider the benefits of living and working in the USA to be worthwhile, then their option is clear. If they think that's terrible, they should have a look sometime at Mexico's immigration laws. Mexico doesn't coddle and pander to illegal aliens, they blatantly give preferential treatment to their own citizens over legal aliens, and I don't blame them. I don't blame the people of Mexico for wanting Mexico to be primarily for Mexicans.
Even if all federal immigration laws were vigorously enforced AND all states followed Arizona's lead, the USA's immigration laws are still rather soft and egalitarian compared to the rest of the world. In light of this, I'm tired of the sense of entitlement and all the whining. The way it should work is that the USA is primarily for USA citizens (natural-born or legal naturalized immigrants) and anything we do for anyone else is out of the kindness of our hearts and will be withdrawn if it is not appreciated. That childish sense of entitlement is like anything else: it only grows if you feed it.
"In our population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990."
Unfortunately, the people who oppose this aren't concerned about facts. This is their religious cause. Ignoring facts is how they demonstrate the depth of their faith.
If they did care about the facts, they would have already done the research, already come to the one correct conclusion, and admitted that their previous position was knee-jerk, emotionally driven, and mistaken. Then they'd actually change their minds and you'd never hear the old view from them again. Maybe they'd also learn an unforgettable lesson about informing yourself prior to vehemently taking a position on something.
That's what they would do if they were concerned about facts: the easily-researched, easily-comprehended facts of the matter. Clearly, they are not concerned about facts. They do seem to care about hand-waving, turning basic law enforcement (and anything else they don't like) into a racial/ethic issue, and saving face. In the absence of facts supporting their position, using the term "racist" as a weapon is all they have.
There are issues where multiple valid positions are possible. There are topics which are opinion-based in nature. This isn't one of those. To maintain a verifiably false position in the face of multiple contradictory facts is a degree of self-deception and insanity I find difficult to comprehend. It's simply psychotic (that is, indicates no contact with reality).
Actually, it's realistic. Why waste a bunch of time on something that isn't that important and has several, easier alternatives? If I just want my music to work, I don't want to have to earn a recording engineer degree or computer science degree in the process.
What you view as a waste, I view as an investment. It's a chance to build my character by discouraging laziness. It's a chance to exercise the skill of finding and applying information for myself -- like any skill, it grows with use. I'm at the point where a new task of that (small) magnitude would take me only a couple of minutes of reading and I'm ready to do it and have it work the first time. I'm not special and that didn't just happen; as I said, it is a skill. A realistic degree of self-sufficiency is valuable to me. Others prefer unnecessary dependence.
This is trivial compared to earning a degree and the fact that you feel a need to resort to this kind of hyperbole reinforces my point.
Sure, it would be fun, but I got better things to do with my time. That's not defeatist at all, it's pragmatic.
"I don't consider this worthwhile" is not nearly the same thing as "it's too hard"*. Why must I explain such basic things to people? Because you're dim-witted? No. Ah, yes, because you're hostile to the point being made (eager to dismiss it, unwilling to entertain it) regardless of its truth or falsehood. This is an emotional reaction based on not liking something. It's pitiful in the face of a mind that wants to discover and consider new points of view.
* Though having said that, I'm more like Thoreau. I don't consider running around and always being restless and ultra-busy and always telling people "I'm too busy" or "I don't have the time" to be a status symbol, though egos do love feeling important in this way. Having some free time to spend on things hardcore pragmatists (who must find a $$ value to everything) cannot value means to me that I have managed the affairs of life so well that I am not falling behind, that I am not drowning in an ocean of unfinished work, that I can take care of my business and have time left over to enjoy the life such business affairs make possible.
There is definitely a time and place for pragmatism, but there's also so much more to life. If practicality is all that concerns you, why would you bother with music at all? You can definitely live without it. By buying music you're supporting the idea of creating art with no immediate practical value. Art doesn't put men on the moon, or manufacture goods, or arrest criminals, or satisfy other practical needs. Does that then make you a hypocrite, or can you acknowledge that pragmatism is only one frame of reference and not always the most appropriate one?
There's nothing in the world easier than crying about materialism/practicality whenever someone shows you some character or some principle, then you can pat yourself on the back like you found some magical slam-dunk victory and discredited that person. Nothing is farther from the truth. You did not discredit that person, you merely decided to become swine when shown a pearl.
I think they are talking about the fact that you have to rip your music (and know what format and quality to rip it in), possibly fix the metadata, manage each of your devices manually while they are connected to the computer
I mentioned it's even easier without worrying abot physical media like CDs. Then you don't have to bother with any of that. Much music these days is purchased as a digital download.
backup your music
If you aren't backing up the data on your computer, you already have bigger problems. With online backup services cheaply available and completely automated, there really is no excuse for this. Sorry but I can't be bothered worrying about the fate of people who are choosing to be negligent.
and if you want to stream your collection, configure streaming software, your router, and for most consumers, configure a dynamic DNS service like DynDns
If you want to do it yourself like I suggested, then yes. None of it would be that hard, incidentally. It's more a matter of following step-by-step instructions that a few minutes with Google can produce for free. This is too much for a literate adult person to handle? That, however, is not even what this article suggests. The streaming services they're talking about don't require doing it yourself. They simply need the correct client. With a good set of defaults any configuration would be minimal or done for you entirely.
You could have all your music on a file share but not everyone leaves their computers on 24/7. All in all, that is a lot of knowledge and work that most consumers would like to avoid.
I never subscribed to this attitude of "it's too hard so I won't learn how". It's self-limiting and defeatist. I'd rather discover something new and expand my knowledge and capabilities. This can be an enjoyable experience. Everything is hard until you learn how to do it. This isn't special just because it's "... with a computer". This kind of knowledge isn't exclusive to some esoteric guild where you must be an initiate to have the information; it's available freely in great abundance to anyone with a Net connection.
You don't need to be an expert in IT to download and configure a couple of programs. You don't need to understand the low-level implementation details of TCP to use a Web browser. Especially if we're talking about "young listeners", these are people who have grown up with computers and networks. If they want to limit themselves, let them; I'm sure many will. Still, I for one am not going to display an attitude of "they're too stupid/lazy or lack the initiative so they could never handle that." It sends the wrong message.
In fact that possibility of achieving some level of mastery over the technology and gaining some control of your own experience is one of the major factors that distinguishes the modern Internet from old media like TV. With TV you have no such option; you can only passively consume. With the Internet you can do that too, or you can put forth a little effort and have a completely different experience. I have my choice and I suppose others have theirs, but that has no bearing on what is both possible and attainable.
Indeed. I think TFA draws the wrong conclusion. People prefer the convenience of streaming, but I'm sure they would have preferred ownership if the convenience was the same.
You could do both and that's why I don't see this as an either/or situation. Have your own collection of mp3s/flacs/whatever on your own computer, then set up your own streaming server (like icecast). Your mobile smartphone can access this anywhere you go.
Also, there's a part of the summary I really don't understand:
"There is a certain relief with not having to own music. It is a lot of work,"
Yes, copying an mp3 file to my media partition is just so incredibly labor-intensive. In fact I have to remember to drink lots of water or else I'll pass out from all the exertion. And don't even get me started on Amarok, I mean I just double-click an album and it starts playing, it's terribly hard you know.
Really though, what the hell are they talking about? It's always been easy, and when you're not bound to physical media like CDs it's even easier still.
Seconded. The idea of them playing by our rules is almost as laughable as us playing by theirs.
Indeed. The idea that they will "respect us" is absurd. In their minds they have already stripped us of all humanity and made us into a dollar-denominated commodity just like so much furniture or livestock. This alienated, dehumanizing system which presupposes that anyone other than me should decide what my needs and wants are constitutes my major philosophical problem with the whole concept of marketing. That, plus the fact that no one has asked me if I consent to be tracked and marketed to, and my consent is assumed by default and this is a violation, is the minor philosophical reason why I block all ads from all sites.
The major practical reason is that my data obviously has value to various companies, yet those companies have never approached me with a contract or other offer -- meanwhile they would call it "theft" if I took their properties (intellectual or material) without compensating them. This is garden-variety hypocrisy in an unusually obvious form. The minor practical reason is that advertising is the most biased source of information imaginable and therefore not good enough for me if I were actually making a purchasing decision.
What these people do respect is scarcity. Even if it's artificial (like all intellectual property). The only way to create that is to have more and more informed users who know how the game is played well enough to understand how to stop playing it if they so choose. If an IP address is the most personal information of yours they can obtain, you're doing it correctly.
As an aside, these "My Clean PC" morons? Even if I had a desire or a need that this product could satisfy (which I don't), the way they keep spamming where they are unwelcome would tell me everything I need to know about who they are and what kind of business dealings I could expect from them. They obviously subscribe to the "loud and annoying = sales!" school of marketing. That school needs to go extinct like all the rest of the dinosaurs, along with the idiotic people who reward it with money at the expense of themselves and everyone who has to deal with spam.
I also wonder how many people will vote against Romney because he is Mormon. Aren't we also supposed to be "tolerant" of religion? I do realize that you ultimately choose your own religious beliefs, but the fact is that the law makes no distinction.
Just give it a rest, folks: most people who oppose Obama do so because of his beliefs, his record, and his policies. The racists are an edge case.
Honestly I don't care what religion a candidate is. I care about whether a candidate promotes freedom and prosperity. Concerning myself with his private religious beliefs is like voting for him based on whether he likes the same kind of music that I do, or eats the same kinds of breakfasts. It's a trivial non-issue in the face of bigger problems.
It's like the fantasy is that every candidate must be someone you would personally hang out with or maybe go to church with. The office of the Presidency is a job. There are good reasons why my private employer does not ask what religion I practice: it is not a pastorial or clergical position, so this would be irrelevant. Asking about it could only be discriminatory.
Making everything as personal as possible and having no sense of decorum, no idea of "this really isn't my concern" is the mark of small-minded people. These are the ones who keep paparazzi in business.
No, by _definition_ "conservative" means you want to maintain the status quo and believe that changes to it should be made slowly and gradually. If you want a good antonym, try "radical".
That's what the word means. You either use the word correctly, use a different word if you mean something different, or you're wrong. I don't subscribe to this "but but languages evolve!" nonsense, at least not when it's used to defend stupidity. We live in an age where kids are made to play soccer games without keeping score so "everyone's a winner!" The "languages evolve" excuse is like that. To say that wrongly using words is proof that languages evolve is a nice, sweet, sugary-coated way of saying that ignorance tends to establish itself and become institutionalized.
Languages evolve when new words are created to explain new concepts that did not previously exist. All the terms we have now like "bit, nibble, byte, megabyte, et al" or "laser", and terms like "fiber optic" that did not exist 100 years ago is bona fide evolution of language. This isn't the same as redefining useful words to suit the widespread ignorance of those who utter them. Something novel that didn't previously exist is evolution; confusing two things which both previously existed is neither creative nor evolutionary.
Anyway, a great deal of Newspeak has occurred in the last couple of decades in politics. "Liberal" used to mean what we now call a "classical liberal" -- the most similar word for it today would be "libertarian".* Now it is wrongly used to describe "Communist with a happy face" the same way ""Conservative" is often used to describe "Fascist who claims to want your prosperity".
Speaking of free markets, you probably realize they don't work in a situation that naturally tends to create a monopoly, or where companies in an industry realize it's in their best interests to collude and not to compete. There's not such a free market for electrical utilities, nor for cell phones. Elsewhere, you also won't ever have a free market until the average person is incredibly shrewd and wouldn't consider doing business without first learning all about who they're doing business with. Effectively that means we'd have to eliminate public schooling, at least as we know it today, because that system regards inquisitive, diligent minds as failure to achieve its goals.
* I am talking to those who understand what "libertarian" means, not to those who think a minor political party has a monopoly on the idea that consenting adults should be free to live their lives and reap the consequences. I am especially not talking to the mindless people who seem to have been traumatized by some kind of Soviet-style mind conditioning and have unreasonable emotional reactions to it -- it is never portrayed favorably in the media and that's the upper limit of their ability to think for themselves (though it sure is funny how average people only ever have this kind of irrational response to things which are pro-freedom, meanwhile they will happily sell their liberty to anyone who promises security or some kind of hand-out).
Nope, just an arrogant fuck that doesn't know that the LIBERALS are the racists and the conservatives don't have a problem.
That's absolutely true. The only way to avoid being racist is to simply treat everyone by the same fair and equitable standard. If you give special favor to anyone based on race, that policy is inherently racist. In the long term, the only way to ever defeat racism in a real way is stop participating in racism in any form. That creates less racism. Responding with a different flavor of racism still creates more racism.
What's really racist is to fail to understand this, and then to pretend to be a particular race's "friend" by assisting them in ways you assist few others. Of course you want to look nice and to present yourself as a real friend in terms of how much you're willing to do, how many double standards and other corrupt things you're willing to champion. Anything you do for them they learn to stop doing for themselves. It will atrophy. It's like what happens to a muscle when you stop using it, except on a larger scale.
In most other contexts, this is called dependency. A friend you've come to need isn't really so friendly. The relationship has then shifted; it is now based on power. It's not the mutual benevolence you were sold -- if it were that, it would come from a level of consciousness which isn't so petty as to divide by group identity. It's petty because it's an emotional, feeling-based approach to life that ignores reason because it is not appreciated. Most Liberal types are well-meaning but fall into traps like believing reverse-racism to be a solution to racism. It certainly does have the intended effect on votes, with many Democrat politicians taking "the black vote" for granted.
You can see how that couldn't work except that they see themselves as fundamentally different from whites and vice-versa. That's the part that is a lie. That speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is so famous that they had to have heard it. I think they forgot that part about the content of someone's character.
Most Conservatives are worired about things like financial matters, with vocal minorities concerned about things like abortion and gay marriage to the point of obsession. That sucks but it's not their main problem. Their main problem is that they understand enough not to play that particular dependency game, but too little to offer anything much better. They have little more than their own set of unreasonable demands, dividing the entire political landscape into two camps which each find one set slightly less repulsive than the other.
Albert Einstein gave us some good quotes. Ever heard this one? "The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them." That's what the average person will realize once they finally unplug from this self-limiting matrix of left-right politics.
You could not have more thoroughly failed to understand what I said. If it were spoken verbally I could understand that, but it is text. You can re-read it as many times as it takes to comprehend it. Perhaps you would like to take a few deep, relaxing breaths and become nice and calm, maybe think of your own personal happy place? That way you can shut down your emotions and activate your logic and reason to let those do the thinking? Section by section, then:
I support youtubes selfish motive. They should not be forced to broadcast speech that they do not like. I also support this poor ignorant childs right to spew hate speech in public.
If Youtube wants to say "we will selectively censor what we dislike depending on our mood at that moment on that day, and not according to a policy that is applied equally to everyone", that would be different. Youtube has made no such claim. What they have claimed is that they will not tolerate hate speech.
They were given multiple examples of hate speech. They censored the one that wasn't even intended to be hateful while allowing replies that were specifically designed to make that child feel bad. If they wish to rewrite their policy so that it reads "no hate speech allowed... except the hate speech we decide to accept" that would be different. That would be fucked up, but at least it would not be hypocritical.
There are only two logically consistent, non-hypocritical way to handle things: either censor both the girl AND her hateful responders, or censor none of them. I don't care what emotions your endocrine system is making you to feel at this moment. I also don't care if you personally favor one kind of hate speech over another kind. That's the simple truth.
Your insane theories on christians and whites being attacked are pretty humorous though. Oh noes I can't use my religion to pass laws impacting others rights, help help I am being oppressed.
I do not believe this sixteen-year-old girl is a legislator. Neither is she in an executive position where she can veto a bill or sign that bill into law. She is not trying to pass any law. She is merely trying to express an opinion. Do you see how simple that is, and how ridiculous you are for suggesting otherwise?
This is why you cannot separate your emotion from reason here. You have this desperate need to make the girl into a figurehead representing some radical Christians who really do try to pass oppressive laws. Naturally you then hate this creation you have made. That is why you want her to suffer. That is why you like one kind of hate speech, namely that which makes her suffer, while disliking another. You feel so justified applying your double standard because you really don't like her. It's still a double standard.
You are just as much of a hypocrite as Google. Don't play this game with me. I see things quite clearly and am not someone you can blind with emotion.
And the cost of purchasing legitimate copies goes up.
Which leads to more pirating.
Which leads to higher costs to combat the pirating.
Which leads to higher costs to the RIAA.
And the cost of purchasing legitimate copies goes up.
ad infinitum
You say that like it's a bad thing.
At some point the copyright cartels need to learn to be satisifed with the billions they are already making. Why, if they quit spending so many tens of millions to run anti-piracy campaigns, filtering, lawsuits against grandmas and children, and to purchase new draconian laws, they'd have even more cash in their pockets!
YouTube is not the one performing the copyright infringement. "They" don't like to hear this, but "They" are required to control and defend their copyrights, and nobody else.
Amen. If Youtube is "infringing copyright" then so is every ISP, hard drive manufacturer, monitor maker, and speaker manufacturer.
"Who cares about costs," some say? Obviously hard drive manufacturers should include hardware-based filtering software to make sure nothing copyright is stored on the drives without prior authorization from the media cartels. Yes this would drive up the costs of hard drives, but... but... externalities!
Yeah. I'd rather every copyright be invalidated than live in that world. Far as I am concerned, the copyright cartels already receive enough special treatment. While it's low-brow of me, and I admit that freely, I derive a certain enjoyment from watching how much they scream and cry when they don't get their way. They're really not used to that.
Why yes, you're right. On that note, I'd like to share my opinion on niggers and how that problem should be handled.........
And you should have that right even though this is reprehensible.
The rest of us are also free to decide not to associate with you. That's how it should be handled. I do not want some authority punishing you for it. You simply won't have too many friends and lots of people may decide not to do business with you and that's enough.
So because Hate speech is in her holy book youtube should keep it up? What if I make a new holy book filled with hate speech about cpu6502 should youtube keep that video? I fail to see what book it was that contained this vile speech has to do with it.
Can you not see the difference between speech that targets a whole group vs 1 person?
What kind of mental gymnastics must one perform to excuse this kind of blatant hypocrisy?
If curtailing "hate speech" is your goal then you don't care what kind of hatred it is. Certainly if your respect for others' creeds and religions is so low that you will brand them "hate speakers" merely for quoting a religion's holy book, that may not have been read with an emotion of hatred... how do you then allow emotionally charged insults and death threats without recognizing that these contain hatred? Do you believe death threats are an act of love?
Personally I believe in free speech. That goes also for speech I think is reprehensible. Disallowing threats and slander/libel is a good balance. Everything else should be fine. This girl should be allowed to read from her Bible. The other users should also be allowed to insult her, provided they don't threaten her. Do you see how I am not taking sides here, how I am not being a hypocritical bastard about this? Unlike Google?
Youtube would rather lose one ignorant user than a large group of users.
Yes, indeed. Wherever you find blatant and obvious hypocrisy, you find a selfish motive behind it. In this case, the selfish motive is user retention. You can understand why this is not founded in principle, right? You can see how this is not rooted in equanimity, correct?
So what's your selfish motive for defending obvious hypocrisy? I see no financial tie, so you must have a personal reason. Perhaps you really dislike religious people and are glad to see one suffer, even if you must compromise principles like free speech? Maybe you have bought into this childish hyper-emotional brand of Leftism where the fact that you "offended" me gives me the "right" to harass you? Especially if you are a Christian or a white male, since mindless group identity is everything to these anti-individuals?
Whatever happened to real men who had balls and brains, like Voltaire, who said "I may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it?" How about the American Founders, who knew damned well that people would use the First Amendment to say lots of things they may not personally like? All I see is a bunch of overgrown children who will use any excuse to make people behave the way they personally think they should.
"obviously a joke to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together" -> Funny you should mention that. Rumor has it, the policy enforcement agencies in the US do employ a battery of intelligence tests to ensure that they only admit applicants who will not become, well, bored with the job. The kinds of people who find tying their shoe-laces to be somewhat challenging. That sort of thing.
But I have heard that occasionally some of the brighter variety slip through the net. I believe they're the ones who do not feel threatened by the presence of a video camera, nor are they inclined to shoot the family dog during a raid. One or two of them might even offer opinions on current law issues that are not considered "going with the pack."
This is one of the best posts I've read in a while.
Slashdot Mirror
That OS X has a UNIX console is one of its strengths when talking about UNIX professionals moving to OS X so I don't know why you're holding it up as a negative. I have used OS X as a Linux Administrator before I missed 2 things that made me get a Linux box at work - middle-click paste and kde io-slaves (fish:// in Kate, so really I missed Kate). However, I never considered OS X 'crippled to the point of being not useful.' Assuming you're not just trolling, what exactly was wrong with OS X for you.
I don't personally consider OSX to be crippled. I do wonder one thing, though.
As someone very satisfied with Linux, what would OSX offer me? Any "Unix professional" can handle Linux. This isn't someone who is afraid of the command line, or of making technical decisions. That alone destroys most of the appeal of OSX (a system that has worked beautifully for several non-techies I know who didn't want to deal with those things). For me, moving to OSX would mean gaining nothing I don't already have, plus having to pay a premium for it. I also very much value software freedom as implemented by the GPL, and I don't believe Apple is willing to negotiate on that one.
What would possibly make me consider OSX? I assume I am well outside of their target market, but I am willing to consider your answer.
Not sure why this is rated off-topic.
Because some emotionally volatile cunt of a moderator didn't like the way it sounded. Egos think they're "God", egos take everything personally, and you don't offend "God" or you face "God's" wrath.
You know how you cannot criticize a politician on genuine, factual grounds without some moron piping up and saying "yeah, well, Politician X from the Opposite Party did something bad too, so nyaa!" as though that made your original criticism any less valid? I think they say "huh? WHAT?! That's MY TEAM they're criticizing. Quick, activate Us vs. Them mode, NOW! Whatever you do, don't logically refute any of it!"
Yeah, anyway... somebody just did that with X. A down-mod was their way to avoid logically refuting it. Or admitting that they can't.
I wish there were an accurate way to identify people like this. Then we can give them the status of second-class citizens, barring them from ever holding any political office or other position of authority. They're just not emotionally mature enough to be trusted with those things.
Linux is not for the lazy....plain and simple. It's for people that when they have a problem, they can use their brain cells, observe the problem and try to solve it, if it doesn't work, they ask for help...nicely since the linux community (like me) are not paid to do so ...were happy to help that's all
I very much respect and appreciate the concept that the more I am willing to put into something, the more I will get out of it. That's about as fair and equitable as it gets. In fact I wish more things in life worked that way.
You're right about laziness. This topic just provides an illustration, a focal point for a more general and unfortunate trend. In the USA there is definitely an anti-intellectual, passive, back-seat way of life that's become popular. It's somehow cool to be ignorant, helpless, and intellectually lazy. Lots of people will validate it. The guy who says you could expect better of yourself is somehow an asshole, I guess for telling you that you're more capable than you know, for not supporting the culture of self-limitation.
The message that you can not only understand, but also master, anything you put your mind to is more unwelcome now than it ever has been. I suppose because people love having excuses for why they can't do something, and this message threatens (to them) to take those excuses away. If you were younger and worked a service-type job where you had to deal with the general public, you know precisely how helpless adult people choose to be. They will ask you where something is when they're standing right in front of it, because crying for help is easy while observing what's in plain view is harder (for them). I could name countless examples like that.
I could say I make at least a small effort to help myself and only when that fails do I look for help from others because I don't secretly my time is more precious to me than someone else's time is to them, like the childish self-centered people do. But that's only the surface of it. Look at bit deeper and what you will see are people who are their own worst enemies, who limit themselves needlessly, and think you're launching a personal attack when you suggest however politely that they don't have to. They're very sensitive about it because they know it won't withstand examination. Somehow that's not reason enough to change it, for them.
This amounts to large numbers of passive, helpless people who are forever denied the discovery of their own personal genius. It's a nuisance but more than that, it's quite a tragedy.
Computing just brings it into the foreground because it's a machine. It won't humor or coddle someone. It won't work just to make someone feel better. It only works when it's used correctly. That's precisely where the anti-intellectualism runs into problems.
So before you said idiot things like that (like always) remember that windows, mac and all other operating systems are not perfect and they do have their fair share of problems.
They certainly do. There are lots of Windows problems and Windows forums. Windows isn't the automatic slam-dunk of usability that some might claim. You still have to learn how to use it. With Windows there is at least some expectation that you should get some support because you have purchased it, but average home users probably aren't getting this from Microsoft. They are probably going to the OEM, or paying a local computer shop.
Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population.
Am I the only one who doesn't see that as a problem?
Average users who don't want to learn new things about their systems are already well represented. They have several good options. What's so wrong with an OS for those who like learning and want to understand how the system works?
As a long-time Linux user, why would I feel a need for the masses to join me? I'm fine with people choosing what suits them best. I don't need them to choose what I choose. I like the choices I made in a way that doesn't depend on what someone else does.
Linux already has what it needs: enough of a userbase that there is active development and the attention of various companies which can contribute. I don't want it to become so thoroughly obscure as to lose that, because that is a good thing. I for one feel no need to "beat Microsoft", as though popularity indicated quality. Anyone who has seriously considered that question has already observed that it frequently indicates the opposite.
Why does Linux need tons of non-technical users who are unlikely to appreciate and understand the Open Source ethic? So that companies will include Linux drivers by default with hardware you buy? I've personally never had problems getting hardware to work, but then the correct way to do this is to match the hardware to the OS. Doing that, I found I had a very wide selection of hardware covering a large range of prices and capabilities. If that's what drives the desire to "go mainstream" more than Linux already has, it seems designed to solve what is not actually a problem. If that's not what drives this urge, then what does?
In the absence of facts supporting their position, using the term "racist" as a weapon is all they have.
You mean like the fact that the quoted study was conducted on a prison population?
The question is, how does that compare to the recidivism rate of legal citizens who committed similar crimes? And among people who were willing to break the law just to trespass here (and that's what they are, trespassers, same as I would be if I snuck into Mexico), how much respect for our laws were you expecting them to have?
And what is that "one correct conclusion", oh great enlightened master? Let me guess, it aligns well with you political idealogy, and is generally agreeable to the body of your preexisting views and biases?
That the laws on the books, concerning immigration and anything else, should either be enforced or repealed. Is that biased enough for you?
Of course, by assuming that I must be biased against someone or something, you are confirming my point. Some kind of accusation of bias of some kind is like a hammer to so many, and by God everything suddenly looks just like a nail. Maybe if you just keep trying hard enough it will finally work?
It's like you were doing this: "Hmm. Don't like what that guy said - check. Have to portray him as biased, bigoted, or just plain unpleasant because heaven forbid two adults have a conversation about a national issue without making it personal - check. Muddy the water with "human issues" and "both sides of the equation" when concepts like "rule of law" are so damned simple - check."
Tell you what. If you truly want to be as unbiased and fair as possible, I have a proposal. Let's follow Mexico's lead and do it the way they do it! Let's harmonize our immigration laws to match theirs, the same way that copyright laws are harmonized among various nations. If you support illegal immigration, you wouldn't like that one damned bit. But it would be so unbiased!
I still don't understand why States need to enforce federal laws.
If the federal government doesn't want to enforce laws, that's because they have a reason to - no need for states to get involved in international affairs.
(The answer is: Americans want illegal immigration to continue)
Because most of the law enforcement and other government services that are expended because of illegal aliens happen at the state and local levels. It's easy for the federal government to be lazy here because the federal politicians get the support for looking the other way AND they're not the ones bearing the burden of it. You might as well ask why a heavily-polluting industry doesn't want anti-pollution laws to be enforced.
And no, most Americans don't want illegal immigration to continue. I know a very vocal minority likes to portray their view as representative of the general population but it isn't. The only ones who benefit from it are: big businesses who like paying lower wages, the Republican candidates they tend to sponsor, and Democrat candidates who score points with their base by pandering to the Hispanic minority.
Most people are not majority shareholders in large corporations. Most people are not Republican federal politicians receiving campaign contributions. Most people are not federal Democrat politicians receiving votes from well-meaning but stupid people who feel good about making everything a racial issue only because they happen to be on the privileged side of this particular one.
The vast majority of Americans gain nothing from this at all. The legal American citizens who live in places with large illegal alien populations not only fail to gain, but lose a lot. They lose in the form of lower wages, higher crime, language barriers, and money leaving their local communities because it's being sent to relatives in foreign nations. When it turns out they don't want to be exploited like this, they're told about how "racist" they are for not liking it, just to add some insult to injury. They're pretty damned tired of it. Do you blame them? Those legal American citizens are the hosts, while the federal political machine that benefits from this is the parasite.
They're politically fighting back at the state level because they have no voice at all on the federal level. They can't outclass the corporate sponsorship on the Republican side. Meanwhile the Democrat party will never give up its obsession with dividing people by race because playing various racial/ethnic groups against each other is how they get many of their votes. So the people are taking the options that are still available to them. All you are seeing here is that the people are better represented in state and local governments than they could ever dream of being in the federal government. This is nothing new.
Again, do you blame them? It's all easy to play armchair critic and forget that this is a direct response to a real problem.
Yes, and it makes sense. But do you have to carry it around, in case a cop decides to question your legal status in the US? The article title says... "Arizona H-1B Workers Advised to Carry Papers At All Times" (emphasis mine).
In Arizona, having a valid driver's license provides a presumption of citizenship. The cops can inquire about citizenship if someone is pulled over at a traffic stop, or arrested because they are suspected of a crime. Now, if they're driving, they're supposed to have a license anyway. If they are arrested for a crime, documentation will be the least of their worries. I don't see a problem here.
As for as H-1B workers who might be passengers, AND don't have driver's licenses? The people of Arizona, through their representatives, have decided that some extra hassle attached to this edge case is a worthy trade-off in return for being able to do something about the serious illegal immigration problem they are experiencing. The people of Arizona have this right, as the courts have rightly upheld. It is their state.
Foreign workers are like guests in their home and it's about time this became more widely recognized. If you are a guest in my home, you will be treated with kindness and all of your civil rights will be respected because that's a minimum standard of decency. But if you bitch, complain, try to tell me how I should live, demand I accept trespassers, or in any way don't like being there, then you can kindly get the fuck out. This is the same thing at a larger scale, that's all.
I don't personally like every law on the books of every state myself, but I accept them and abide by them. If those H-1B workers truly have a problem with the law, and don't consider the benefits of living and working in the USA to be worthwhile, then their option is clear. If they think that's terrible, they should have a look sometime at Mexico's immigration laws. Mexico doesn't coddle and pander to illegal aliens, they blatantly give preferential treatment to their own citizens over legal aliens, and I don't blame them. I don't blame the people of Mexico for wanting Mexico to be primarily for Mexicans.
Even if all federal immigration laws were vigorously enforced AND all states followed Arizona's lead, the USA's immigration laws are still rather soft and egalitarian compared to the rest of the world. In light of this, I'm tired of the sense of entitlement and all the whining. The way it should work is that the USA is primarily for USA citizens (natural-born or legal naturalized immigrants) and anything we do for anyone else is out of the kindness of our hearts and will be withdrawn if it is not appreciated. That childish sense of entitlement is like anything else: it only grows if you feed it.
You might want to read this GAO report:
"In our population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990."
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-646R
Unfortunately, the people who oppose this aren't concerned about facts. This is their religious cause. Ignoring facts is how they demonstrate the depth of their faith.
If they did care about the facts, they would have already done the research, already come to the one correct conclusion, and admitted that their previous position was knee-jerk, emotionally driven, and mistaken. Then they'd actually change their minds and you'd never hear the old view from them again. Maybe they'd also learn an unforgettable lesson about informing yourself prior to vehemently taking a position on something.
That's what they would do if they were concerned about facts: the easily-researched, easily-comprehended facts of the matter. Clearly, they are not concerned about facts. They do seem to care about hand-waving, turning basic law enforcement (and anything else they don't like) into a racial/ethic issue, and saving face. In the absence of facts supporting their position, using the term "racist" as a weapon is all they have.
There are issues where multiple valid positions are possible. There are topics which are opinion-based in nature. This isn't one of those. To maintain a verifiably false position in the face of multiple contradictory facts is a degree of self-deception and insanity I find difficult to comprehend. It's simply psychotic (that is, indicates no contact with reality).
They remind me of the flat-earth adherents.
Actually, it's realistic. Why waste a bunch of time on something that isn't that important and has several, easier alternatives? If I just want my music to work, I don't want to have to earn a recording engineer degree or computer science degree in the process.
What you view as a waste, I view as an investment. It's a chance to build my character by discouraging laziness. It's a chance to exercise the skill of finding and applying information for myself -- like any skill, it grows with use. I'm at the point where a new task of that (small) magnitude would take me only a couple of minutes of reading and I'm ready to do it and have it work the first time. I'm not special and that didn't just happen; as I said, it is a skill. A realistic degree of self-sufficiency is valuable to me. Others prefer unnecessary dependence.
This is trivial compared to earning a degree and the fact that you feel a need to resort to this kind of hyperbole reinforces my point.
Sure, it would be fun, but I got better things to do with my time. That's not defeatist at all, it's pragmatic.
"I don't consider this worthwhile" is not nearly the same thing as "it's too hard"*. Why must I explain such basic things to people? Because you're dim-witted? No. Ah, yes, because you're hostile to the point being made (eager to dismiss it, unwilling to entertain it) regardless of its truth or falsehood. This is an emotional reaction based on not liking something. It's pitiful in the face of a mind that wants to discover and consider new points of view.
* Though having said that, I'm more like Thoreau. I don't consider running around and always being restless and ultra-busy and always telling people "I'm too busy" or "I don't have the time" to be a status symbol, though egos do love feeling important in this way. Having some free time to spend on things hardcore pragmatists (who must find a $$ value to everything) cannot value means to me that I have managed the affairs of life so well that I am not falling behind, that I am not drowning in an ocean of unfinished work, that I can take care of my business and have time left over to enjoy the life such business affairs make possible.
There is definitely a time and place for pragmatism, but there's also so much more to life. If practicality is all that concerns you, why would you bother with music at all? You can definitely live without it. By buying music you're supporting the idea of creating art with no immediate practical value. Art doesn't put men on the moon, or manufacture goods, or arrest criminals, or satisfy other practical needs. Does that then make you a hypocrite, or can you acknowledge that pragmatism is only one frame of reference and not always the most appropriate one?
There's nothing in the world easier than crying about materialism/practicality whenever someone shows you some character or some principle, then you can pat yourself on the back like you found some magical slam-dunk victory and discredited that person. Nothing is farther from the truth. You did not discredit that person, you merely decided to become swine when shown a pearl.
I think they are talking about the fact that you have to rip your music (and know what format and quality to rip it in), possibly fix the metadata, manage each of your devices manually while they are connected to the computer
I mentioned it's even easier without worrying abot physical media like CDs. Then you don't have to bother with any of that. Much music these days is purchased as a digital download.
backup your music
If you aren't backing up the data on your computer, you already have bigger problems. With online backup services cheaply available and completely automated, there really is no excuse for this. Sorry but I can't be bothered worrying about the fate of people who are choosing to be negligent.
and if you want to stream your collection, configure streaming software, your router, and for most consumers, configure a dynamic DNS service like DynDns
If you want to do it yourself like I suggested, then yes. None of it would be that hard, incidentally. It's more a matter of following step-by-step instructions that a few minutes with Google can produce for free. This is too much for a literate adult person to handle? That, however, is not even what this article suggests. The streaming services they're talking about don't require doing it yourself. They simply need the correct client. With a good set of defaults any configuration would be minimal or done for you entirely.
You could have all your music on a file share but not everyone leaves their computers on 24/7. All in all, that is a lot of knowledge and work that most consumers would like to avoid.
I never subscribed to this attitude of "it's too hard so I won't learn how". It's self-limiting and defeatist. I'd rather discover something new and expand my knowledge and capabilities. This can be an enjoyable experience. Everything is hard until you learn how to do it. This isn't special just because it's "... with a computer". This kind of knowledge isn't exclusive to some esoteric guild where you must be an initiate to have the information; it's available freely in great abundance to anyone with a Net connection.
You don't need to be an expert in IT to download and configure a couple of programs. You don't need to understand the low-level implementation details of TCP to use a Web browser. Especially if we're talking about "young listeners", these are people who have grown up with computers and networks. If they want to limit themselves, let them; I'm sure many will. Still, I for one am not going to display an attitude of "they're too stupid/lazy or lack the initiative so they could never handle that." It sends the wrong message.
In fact that possibility of achieving some level of mastery over the technology and gaining some control of your own experience is one of the major factors that distinguishes the modern Internet from old media like TV. With TV you have no such option; you can only passively consume. With the Internet you can do that too, or you can put forth a little effort and have a completely different experience. I have my choice and I suppose others have theirs, but that has no bearing on what is both possible and attainable.
Indeed. I think TFA draws the wrong conclusion. People prefer the convenience of streaming, but I'm sure they would have preferred ownership if the convenience was the same.
You could do both and that's why I don't see this as an either/or situation. Have your own collection of mp3s/flacs/whatever on your own computer, then set up your own streaming server (like icecast). Your mobile smartphone can access this anywhere you go.
Also, there's a part of the summary I really don't understand:
"There is a certain relief with not having to own music. It is a lot of work,"
Yes, copying an mp3 file to my media partition is just so incredibly labor-intensive. In fact I have to remember to drink lots of water or else I'll pass out from all the exertion. And don't even get me started on Amarok, I mean I just double-click an album and it starts playing, it's terribly hard you know.
Really though, what the hell are they talking about? It's always been easy, and when you're not bound to physical media like CDs it's even easier still.
Seconded. The idea of them playing by our rules is almost as laughable as us playing by theirs.
Indeed. The idea that they will "respect us" is absurd. In their minds they have already stripped us of all humanity and made us into a dollar-denominated commodity just like so much furniture or livestock. This alienated, dehumanizing system which presupposes that anyone other than me should decide what my needs and wants are constitutes my major philosophical problem with the whole concept of marketing. That, plus the fact that no one has asked me if I consent to be tracked and marketed to, and my consent is assumed by default and this is a violation, is the minor philosophical reason why I block all ads from all sites.
The major practical reason is that my data obviously has value to various companies, yet those companies have never approached me with a contract or other offer -- meanwhile they would call it "theft" if I took their properties (intellectual or material) without compensating them. This is garden-variety hypocrisy in an unusually obvious form. The minor practical reason is that advertising is the most biased source of information imaginable and therefore not good enough for me if I were actually making a purchasing decision.
What these people do respect is scarcity. Even if it's artificial (like all intellectual property). The only way to create that is to have more and more informed users who know how the game is played well enough to understand how to stop playing it if they so choose. If an IP address is the most personal information of yours they can obtain, you're doing it correctly.
As an aside, these "My Clean PC" morons? Even if I had a desire or a need that this product could satisfy (which I don't), the way they keep spamming where they are unwelcome would tell me everything I need to know about who they are and what kind of business dealings I could expect from them. They obviously subscribe to the "loud and annoying = sales!" school of marketing. That school needs to go extinct like all the rest of the dinosaurs, along with the idiotic people who reward it with money at the expense of themselves and everyone who has to deal with spam.
I also wonder how many people will vote against Romney because he is Mormon. Aren't we also supposed to be "tolerant" of religion? I do realize that you ultimately choose your own religious beliefs, but the fact is that the law makes no distinction. Just give it a rest, folks: most people who oppose Obama do so because of his beliefs, his record, and his policies. The racists are an edge case.
Honestly I don't care what religion a candidate is. I care about whether a candidate promotes freedom and prosperity. Concerning myself with his private religious beliefs is like voting for him based on whether he likes the same kind of music that I do, or eats the same kinds of breakfasts. It's a trivial non-issue in the face of bigger problems.
It's like the fantasy is that every candidate must be someone you would personally hang out with or maybe go to church with. The office of the Presidency is a job. There are good reasons why my private employer does not ask what religion I practice: it is not a pastorial or clergical position, so this would be irrelevant. Asking about it could only be discriminatory.
Making everything as personal as possible and having no sense of decorum, no idea of "this really isn't my concern" is the mark of small-minded people. These are the ones who keep paparazzi in business.
No, by _definition_ "conservative" means you want to maintain the status quo and believe that changes to it should be made slowly and gradually. If you want a good antonym, try "radical".
That's what the word means. You either use the word correctly, use a different word if you mean something different, or you're wrong. I don't subscribe to this "but but languages evolve!" nonsense, at least not when it's used to defend stupidity. We live in an age where kids are made to play soccer games without keeping score so "everyone's a winner!" The "languages evolve" excuse is like that. To say that wrongly using words is proof that languages evolve is a nice, sweet, sugary-coated way of saying that ignorance tends to establish itself and become institutionalized.
Languages evolve when new words are created to explain new concepts that did not previously exist. All the terms we have now like "bit, nibble, byte, megabyte, et al" or "laser", and terms like "fiber optic" that did not exist 100 years ago is bona fide evolution of language. This isn't the same as redefining useful words to suit the widespread ignorance of those who utter them. Something novel that didn't previously exist is evolution; confusing two things which both previously existed is neither creative nor evolutionary.
Anyway, a great deal of Newspeak has occurred in the last couple of decades in politics. "Liberal" used to mean what we now call a "classical liberal" -- the most similar word for it today would be "libertarian".* Now it is wrongly used to describe "Communist with a happy face" the same way ""Conservative" is often used to describe "Fascist who claims to want your prosperity".
Speaking of free markets, you probably realize they don't work in a situation that naturally tends to create a monopoly, or where companies in an industry realize it's in their best interests to collude and not to compete. There's not such a free market for electrical utilities, nor for cell phones. Elsewhere, you also won't ever have a free market until the average person is incredibly shrewd and wouldn't consider doing business without first learning all about who they're doing business with. Effectively that means we'd have to eliminate public schooling, at least as we know it today, because that system regards inquisitive, diligent minds as failure to achieve its goals.
* I am talking to those who understand what "libertarian" means, not to those who think a minor political party has a monopoly on the idea that consenting adults should be free to live their lives and reap the consequences. I am especially not talking to the mindless people who seem to have been traumatized by some kind of Soviet-style mind conditioning and have unreasonable emotional reactions to it -- it is never portrayed favorably in the media and that's the upper limit of their ability to think for themselves (though it sure is funny how average people only ever have this kind of irrational response to things which are pro-freedom, meanwhile they will happily sell their liberty to anyone who promises security or some kind of hand-out).
Nope, just an arrogant fuck that doesn't know that the LIBERALS are the racists and the conservatives don't have a problem.
That's absolutely true. The only way to avoid being racist is to simply treat everyone by the same fair and equitable standard. If you give special favor to anyone based on race, that policy is inherently racist. In the long term, the only way to ever defeat racism in a real way is stop participating in racism in any form. That creates less racism. Responding with a different flavor of racism still creates more racism.
What's really racist is to fail to understand this, and then to pretend to be a particular race's "friend" by assisting them in ways you assist few others. Of course you want to look nice and to present yourself as a real friend in terms of how much you're willing to do, how many double standards and other corrupt things you're willing to champion. Anything you do for them they learn to stop doing for themselves. It will atrophy. It's like what happens to a muscle when you stop using it, except on a larger scale.
In most other contexts, this is called dependency. A friend you've come to need isn't really so friendly. The relationship has then shifted; it is now based on power. It's not the mutual benevolence you were sold -- if it were that, it would come from a level of consciousness which isn't so petty as to divide by group identity. It's petty because it's an emotional, feeling-based approach to life that ignores reason because it is not appreciated. Most Liberal types are well-meaning but fall into traps like believing reverse-racism to be a solution to racism. It certainly does have the intended effect on votes, with many Democrat politicians taking "the black vote" for granted.
You can see how that couldn't work except that they see themselves as fundamentally different from whites and vice-versa. That's the part that is a lie. That speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is so famous that they had to have heard it. I think they forgot that part about the content of someone's character.
Most Conservatives are worired about things like financial matters, with vocal minorities concerned about things like abortion and gay marriage to the point of obsession. That sucks but it's not their main problem. Their main problem is that they understand enough not to play that particular dependency game, but too little to offer anything much better. They have little more than their own set of unreasonable demands, dividing the entire political landscape into two camps which each find one set slightly less repulsive than the other.
Albert Einstein gave us some good quotes. Ever heard this one? "The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them." That's what the average person will realize once they finally unplug from this self-limiting matrix of left-right politics.
That's not love, that's marketing.
Absolutely. The difference is simple, too: it's marketing if you "love" something that cannot love you back.
I support youtubes selfish motive. They should not be forced to broadcast speech that they do not like. I also support this poor ignorant childs right to spew hate speech in public.
If Youtube wants to say "we will selectively censor what we dislike depending on our mood at that moment on that day, and not according to a policy that is applied equally to everyone", that would be different. Youtube has made no such claim. What they have claimed is that they will not tolerate hate speech.
... except the hate speech we decide to accept" that would be different. That would be fucked up, but at least it would not be hypocritical.
They were given multiple examples of hate speech. They censored the one that wasn't even intended to be hateful while allowing replies that were specifically designed to make that child feel bad. If they wish to rewrite their policy so that it reads "no hate speech allowed
There are only two logically consistent, non-hypocritical way to handle things: either censor both the girl AND her hateful responders, or censor none of them. I don't care what emotions your endocrine system is making you to feel at this moment. I also don't care if you personally favor one kind of hate speech over another kind. That's the simple truth.
Your insane theories on christians and whites being attacked are pretty humorous though. Oh noes I can't use my religion to pass laws impacting others rights, help help I am being oppressed.
I do not believe this sixteen-year-old girl is a legislator. Neither is she in an executive position where she can veto a bill or sign that bill into law. She is not trying to pass any law. She is merely trying to express an opinion. Do you see how simple that is, and how ridiculous you are for suggesting otherwise?
This is why you cannot separate your emotion from reason here. You have this desperate need to make the girl into a figurehead representing some radical Christians who really do try to pass oppressive laws. Naturally you then hate this creation you have made. That is why you want her to suffer. That is why you like one kind of hate speech, namely that which makes her suffer, while disliking another. You feel so justified applying your double standard because you really don't like her. It's still a double standard.
You are just as much of a hypocrite as Google. Don't play this game with me. I see things quite clearly and am not someone you can blind with emotion.
And the cost of purchasing legitimate copies goes up.
Which leads to more pirating.
Which leads to higher costs to combat the pirating.
Which leads to higher costs to the RIAA.
And the cost of purchasing legitimate copies goes up.
ad infinitum
You say that like it's a bad thing.
At some point the copyright cartels need to learn to be satisifed with the billions they are already making. Why, if they quit spending so many tens of millions to run anti-piracy campaigns, filtering, lawsuits against grandmas and children, and to purchase new draconian laws, they'd have even more cash in their pockets!
I think it's because a significant subset of users would automatically flag porn, but not many flag copyrighted material.
And who says old people have left the workforce?
YouTube is not the one performing the copyright infringement. "They" don't like to hear this, but "They" are required to control and defend their copyrights, and nobody else.
Amen. If Youtube is "infringing copyright" then so is every ISP, hard drive manufacturer, monitor maker, and speaker manufacturer.
... but ... externalities!
"Who cares about costs," some say? Obviously hard drive manufacturers should include hardware-based filtering software to make sure nothing copyright is stored on the drives without prior authorization from the media cartels. Yes this would drive up the costs of hard drives, but
Yeah. I'd rather every copyright be invalidated than live in that world. Far as I am concerned, the copyright cartels already receive enough special treatment. While it's low-brow of me, and I admit that freely, I derive a certain enjoyment from watching how much they scream and cry when they don't get their way. They're really not used to that.
Why yes, you're right. On that note, I'd like to share my opinion on niggers and how that problem should be handled.........
And you should have that right even though this is reprehensible.
The rest of us are also free to decide not to associate with you. That's how it should be handled. I do not want some authority punishing you for it. You simply won't have too many friends and lots of people may decide not to do business with you and that's enough.
So because Hate speech is in her holy book youtube should keep it up? What if I make a new holy book filled with hate speech about cpu6502 should youtube keep that video? I fail to see what book it was that contained this vile speech has to do with it.
Can you not see the difference between speech that targets a whole group vs 1 person?
What kind of mental gymnastics must one perform to excuse this kind of blatant hypocrisy?
... how do you then allow emotionally charged insults and death threats without recognizing that these contain hatred? Do you believe death threats are an act of love?
If curtailing "hate speech" is your goal then you don't care what kind of hatred it is. Certainly if your respect for others' creeds and religions is so low that you will brand them "hate speakers" merely for quoting a religion's holy book, that may not have been read with an emotion of hatred
Personally I believe in free speech. That goes also for speech I think is reprehensible. Disallowing threats and slander/libel is a good balance. Everything else should be fine. This girl should be allowed to read from her Bible. The other users should also be allowed to insult her, provided they don't threaten her. Do you see how I am not taking sides here, how I am not being a hypocritical bastard about this? Unlike Google?
Youtube would rather lose one ignorant user than a large group of users.
Yes, indeed. Wherever you find blatant and obvious hypocrisy, you find a selfish motive behind it. In this case, the selfish motive is user retention. You can understand why this is not founded in principle, right? You can see how this is not rooted in equanimity, correct?
So what's your selfish motive for defending obvious hypocrisy? I see no financial tie, so you must have a personal reason. Perhaps you really dislike religious people and are glad to see one suffer, even if you must compromise principles like free speech? Maybe you have bought into this childish hyper-emotional brand of Leftism where the fact that you "offended" me gives me the "right" to harass you? Especially if you are a Christian or a white male, since mindless group identity is everything to these anti-individuals?
Whatever happened to real men who had balls and brains, like Voltaire, who said "I may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it?" How about the American Founders, who knew damned well that people would use the First Amendment to say lots of things they may not personally like? All I see is a bunch of overgrown children who will use any excuse to make people behave the way they personally think they should.
"obviously a joke to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together" -> Funny you should mention that. Rumor has it, the policy enforcement agencies in the US do employ a battery of intelligence tests to ensure that they only admit applicants who will not become, well, bored with the job. The kinds of people who find tying their shoe-laces to be somewhat challenging. That sort of thing.
But I have heard that occasionally some of the brighter variety slip through the net. I believe they're the ones who do not feel threatened by the presence of a video camera, nor are they inclined to shoot the family dog during a raid. One or two of them might even offer opinions on current law issues that are not considered "going with the pack."
This is one of the best posts I've read in a while.
Denigrate not the Python.
When Python said it, it was not a repetitive meme.
Next objection!