First class people choose first class people; second class people choose fourth class people; third class people choose ninth class people; and so on; and so on.
It's a failure of the moderation system that I need to scroll past a dozen irrelevant comments about the article's date before I find one that addresses the actual topic. Anyway...
Not only are you right about this, but the logic the judge used was quite faulty and I can trivially demonstrate why:
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.
Using that logic, they could discriminate racially or on religious grounds. "Anyone who scored too black was rejected" or "anyone who scored too Muslim was rejected". I mean hey, they apply that standard to everyone so it surely could not contradict the principles of equal protection. That's why this is absurd.
I'll never understand what it is about a law degree and a bench that fundamentally distorts someone's ability to use solid logic. If I can see the flaw in seconds couldn't this judge maybe think on it a bit before committing it to a ruling that will affect a man's life?
It's as though the judge had a personal objection to having high-IQ police officers and was looking for an excuse to disallow them.
Yeah I'm not a fan of the defense spending, but looking at the rest of the money I'm pretty content with where it went. I'd like a bit more to STEM and a bit less to corn, but then I am an engineering grad student; were I a corn farmer I might feel differently:)
Were you a corn farmer you should recuse yourself from the issue, at least in any official capacity.
If the parent is the driver of the vehicle and single adult present, then this option is not really an option. A few senteces here or there can help break the trance of the drive. But trying to have any kind of sustained conversation can lead to accidents. It's just as bad as talking on the phone and driving.
Actually there is something particular about talking on a cellphone. It affects driving in a way that conversing with a physically present passenger does not. That's why it has been noticed as a problem, laws have been passed against it, controversies have arisen, studies have been made, etc, when no such effects have arisen out of having more than one person physically occupying a vehicle.
There's even been some interesting speculation about whether the microwave radiation might affect the brain in ways we have not yet realized, causing an effect something like impairment. There's definitely something missing from the picture because study after study keeps showing that talking on a cell phone, even on hands-free mode, affects driving in a way that chatting with a passenger doesn't. The only thing we don't know for sure is the reason why.
If I had to choose between sharing a highway with a driver who has a BAC of 0.08 and a driver who is talking on a cell phone, I'm not so sure I wouldn't choose the driver who's been drinking. At least he *knows* he's impaired and should be using extra caution, giving himself more distance/time to react, etc. I'm not really interested in intensely emotional reactions to that previous statement; there are MADD meetings which would be happy to accommodate those.
oohOohhh OOOOH! Well reasoned and said. I guess Apple doesn't vet and approve each and every item in the App store, and never ever pulls anything it considers offensive to its strict code....
Anyway, I was reacting to the quick draw "blame the parents" crap, not so much the Apple bashing.
The parents are the ones making the purchasing decisions. That means they are to blame, ultimately, for being naive and trusting instead of knowing what they were buying. Parents like this are why you have companies like this who create problems like this. Is the company doing something bad here? Yes, it is. But take that a step further. What is the ultimate financial foundation that had to be laid down first before the company could dream of doing that? There had to be a market for it.
When I really want to solve a problem, I find its ultimate cause. I don't hack at its leaves and branches. I go straight for its root. If what I find there is not really what I wanted to hear, if it reminds me that we do not have a perfect world where you can invest blind faith in a company and never get screwed, I deal with it anyway. Otherwise I am not responsible enough to start telling corporations or anyone else how responsible they should become. This is doubly true for parents who are additionally charged with the awesome responsibility of nurturing and protecting a human life and gradually teaching it to deal wisely with the world as it is.
It'd be a hell of a lot harder to operate an unethical corporation if people were wiser, more savvy, less naive, and performed due diligence. Really it'd be damn near impossible to be unethical without clearly and obviously breaking criminal law.
We have the same problem in the marketplace that we have in government: the real power does come from the regular people, but they have forgotten that. They have abdicated their own responsibility (due diligence) and are shocked that this leaves room for any bad result to happen. The principle here is really simple: if the average person is willing to reward unethical behavior with profits then you have just incentivized unethical behavior and can expect it to florish. This is a case of the corporations following the lead of their patrons and giving them what they are willing to buy, for better or for worse.
Far from excusing the unethical behavior of the corporations and those who run them, this is in fact the best and most certain way to put a stop to it. There's no way in hell I personally would have ever ended up in this situation because I am willing to learn about a device before sinking hundreds of dollars into it and its associated costs. I'm doing my part. Those who don't think that matters leave themselves open to this kind of problem while at the same time rewarding the very behavior they'll complain when it affects them.
This is the viewpoint of the responsible adult who understands that actions have consequences and that making a purchase is voting with your dollars. The blame game and the victim role is for those who are unable to handle this. It's simply the truth.
To get a driver's license you have to pass a written and driving test.
To get a concealed weapons permit you have to pass a written test and proficiency test.
In some cities to have a dog you need a license.
To spawn, all it takes is boredom and ignorance.
I think there is actually a sort of logic to that.
If we as a civilization have become so decadent and degenerate that parents are no longer willing to do whatever is necessary to provide their children with a good, stable, loving home so that hopefully their children can have a better life than they did, then we are already so far gone that we have deeper problems than a licensing system is likely to solve.
That's without getting into issues like: has the government displayed such competence and excellence and wisdom in all the other things it tries to handle these days that you could make a compelling case for its worthiness of being entrusted with such an important decision as parenting?
I really should have emphasized the sarcasm and personal frustration of "Who told them parenting wasn't hard work?" I agree with everything you've laid out. Too many people don't realize the work required to raise a child. I do infact love that there is a charity that will pay drug an alcohol abusers to be sterilized so that they can't have children. It may be controversial but at least somebody is being proactive about improving this messed up society.
Yes, but truth hurts especially when it involves facts we'd rather not admit about things that tend to get idolized like motherhood. Done wisely there'd be no need to put it on a pedestal because it would stand on the merits of its own inherent virtues. Done poorly the damage it does to society is quite real simply because of the awesome responsibility it represents. Personally I am all for adults doing whatever they want to do, up until they allow their bad decision-making to affect others.
Far as the sterilization charity is concerned, it's on a voluntary basis. Someone in that category who does not wish to be sterilized can simply elect not to seek the aid of this particular charity. End of controversy. What is it about adults making decisions for their own lives that would ever be such a big deal?
The only thing surprising me is that the AC wasn't instantly modded "-1 Troll" but I am sure they're getting around to it. How dare someone state an unpleasant truth without first kissing ass, apologizing, begging the reader not to be offended, reassuring us of their benevolence, disclaiming claims that were never actually made to appease the knee-jerks, etc. Doesn't he know that we're living in an age where disagreement with someone makes them the devil and everything they say is automatically malicious?
Lets face it, this is a really slimy business model. For Apple to allow it is atrocious. There are much better alternatives, such as a short window to allow returns. I have kids with iOS devices, and thus hoping they win. Bad parenting? I don't have time to play every game to know its business model, but do try to stick to pay only games just to try my best to avoid them.
I agree with you about the business model. That's why I don't buy iPhones. That's why I wouldn't buy them for anyone else, especially someone too young to be expected to understand financial responsibility. Problem solved. If Apple starts feeling lost sales they can do something about this -- they certainly have enough control over the platform and the App Store. If Apple doesn't care about that and feels satisfied with their sales figures, I can continue using and recommending something else.
One way or another I'm not going to end up in this position. If I somehow did anyway, I'd chalk it up to another lesson learned. It wouldn't occur to me to run to a lawyer hoping he could bail me out of it. I might do that if force or fraud was involved, but me making a bad decision when I should have informed myself does not constitute fraud on the part of the other party.
Europe as a government isn't based on a ideology - it's based on practicality (no matter what the citizens of the member states may think:S). It just happens that many of the member states share similar ideologies.
We owe no duty to it (though we do pay some:P) - in fact if anything many countries will view it as their patriotic duty not to obey Europe, when it's not in their countries interest.
"Patriotism" has a true meaning and it has a false meaning. The true meaning is like that saying about loving your country so much that you politically oppose its government when its government gets out of control (just to be clear - I am talking about political, civil, non-violent opposition).
The false meaning is more like mindlessly supporting its government so you can feel like you're part of something greater than yourself with no regard for whether the government deserves your support. It's usually driven by "us against them" which is why it becomes so popular after the country is attacked by a foreign enemy.
You nailed it. The US doesn't but the media can be absolutely convincing that it does. They only need to beat the drums of patriotism and focus on press releases made by the government since they are "official sources". They are unlikely to delve too deeply into whether that's really representative of the rest of the population. They're too busy defining a convenient norm that sells advertising.
Well it does say can be required to, that doesn't mean they can't be convinced, paid, or otherwise motivated to filter the Internet.
Europe can always take a page from the US's playbook: the next time there's something to be remotely afraid of, it can be declared their "patriotic duty" to filter, monitor, etc. That can be done without passing a single law.
I think you mean bloating of the OS, not CPU. And a firewall hardly adds bloat, it's in the kernel (although I must admit I'm not sure if that's where it is in Windows... I sure hope so).
Windows firewall programs aren't really firewalls, for the most part. They're more like ACLs for API calls involving sockets.
That's why when you run a Windows "firewall" program you don't generally see things like IP addresses, masks, protocols, port numbers, and state information. If you do, it's buried in the menus someplace, not the core function of the program, and likely added as a limited afterthought. They're definitely not a great example of bloat but they are certainly more resource-intensive than something like iptables and the relevant *nix kernel support.
The few times I have used a Windows sytem in the last several years, it was most disappointing. Where you could just write a few rules to cover your needs, now you have to go through a tedious list of programs and incrementally enable each one that may want to use a particular protocol after, of course, having some system tray pop-up distract you from whatever you were trying to get done. Depending on the "firewall", you may have to do it again when you upgrade/update the program since the executable has changed.
Really the only justification for this is the terrible host security of so many Windows systems, which leads to the hope that a strange executable the user has never seen before that wants to use the network might get noticed. It's one of the least efficient ways to operate a firewall. The need to enforce permissions that apply to system calls (of any kind, whether they are related to sockets, disks, etc) should be a core OS function that requires no third-party utilities. The need to regulate network traffic is a different problem that would properly have a different solution.
Honestly it's a fucking inelegant mess but it avoids the BIG SCARY OH NOES!! of requiring users who want to adjust a firewall to know a few things about how networks and firewalls work (sort of like the way we expect people who want to tinker with an engine to have skill as a mechanic and no one calls that unreasonable) or, failing that, to hire/consult someone who does. Like most of the culture surrounding Windows really. For those people who like it this way, use what you like and I say more power to you. To me, it's downright suffocating. I'd much, MUCH rather spend a few minutes reading up on networking, learn it one time, and do it the simple/elegant way from them on, rather than continuously do everything the hard way solely to avoid a little reading.
This set of priorities, more than anything else, is the difference between Windows "computing as a product" and many other systems. You can spend a great deal of time looking at differences in design and technologies without having a satisfying understanding of why things work out the way they do.
As far as antivirus goes, Microsoft Security Essentials is actually very good, and extremely lean. There's not much reason to use any of the commercial antivirus bloatware anymore.
As far as antivirus goes, it's a terrible substitute for a good security system that doesn't treat the user like an illiterate idiot. I'm wondering how much worse the malware problem has to get before more people are willing to admit that antivirus is at best a band-aid and does not address the problem of security. Usually things have to become some big-ass crisis before people are willing to say "you know, the way we've been doing things doesn't work, maybe it's time to try another approach." Until then, those who said all along that something is not sustainable, is moving in the wrong direction, and lacks long-term viability are ignored and marginalized. Too often, that's the way it works.
Office 2010 on ARM was demonstrated during CES in January. Also,.NET apps should be binary compatible. It would not surprise me if it is easier to port 32-bit apps to ARM than it is to port them to amd64.
AMD64 is capable of running 32-bit code. So, are you saying Windows doesn't have some kind of functional equivalent to Linux's multilib? If not, that would be surprising. One would expect that a port to ARM would be much more difficult than getting 32-bit code to run on AMD64, an operation which has no good reason to require a port.
Note, multilib has nothing to do with Linux's open-source nature. It's how users of 64-bit Linux run things like Adobe Flash which are only available as 32-bit closed-source code (unless you count the "64-bit preview" they are just now offering).
So far as I have noticed, every tool you have mentioned is for Windows.
Have you tried playing this game under Wine on a Linux machine? For the multi-core problems, you can build Wine without threads support which will confine it to one CPU. There are probably easier ways to arrange that as well. Wine also gives an option to select which version of Windows you are presenting to the application, from Windows 2.0 (not a typo) to Win 7. Generally, any behavior Wine exhibits that differs from the way that the relevant version of Windows would have behaved is considered a bug and fixed.
I have no idea if that would work for this game but I generally have excellent luck with Wine and Windows games though for most, you do have to crack the DRM simply because Wine won't allow programs to install Windows device drivers or otherwise to sink their hooks into the guts of the system. Something like the Sony rootkit wouldn't work under Wine for that reason. If you are concerned about other malware you can create a separate restricted user account for Wine that doesn't even need to have network access.
If you don't have a Linux system handy, trying this out would be as simple as booting from a live CD. Knoppix would be a good one to try.
It's not hard to see why the public at large is opposed to nuclear power: see the above headline. What is evidently much harder to see is why that opposition is extremely unreasonable, particularly in relation to power by fossil fuels.
It's unreasonable because it's emotional and based on the fear of something that most people don't really understand. Whenever "nuclear" comes up it's hard for many people to imagine anything other than mushroom clouds and Chernobyl.
I'd be curious about whether a pebble bed reactor would have fared better. If so then this is like so many other things in that it's not about what we do but how we go about doing it.
Can't the editor, "Roblimo," proofread the submission? Isn't that practically their entire function?
Can they? Yes. Do they? No. They don't even run basic spell-checkers as evidenced by multiple finalized submissions. I'd personally be ashamed to put my name to much of the work they produce. If they worked in the other 99.99999% of job positions bearing the title "editor" they would be fired due to poor job performance. In this shitty job market I imagine there are many thousands of people who would be happy to do better.
I don't get to slack like that in my job. If the "editors" here started acting like they were semi-worthy of the title I would seriously consider a paid subscription. Note, I don't expect perfection or anything like that. I just want them to at least try.
They should stop calling themselves "editors". Another title like perhaps "reposters" would be more appropriate and would remove the expectation that they act like, well, editors.
I notice that any post pointing out that the ad-laden blog they chose to link in the summary is one of the worst and least-direct (second-hand or third-hand) sources available for the story, or pointing out that (particularly for book reviews) the story itself is likely a Slashvertisement, well those get very quickly modded to oblivion. And I do mean *quickly*. I wouldn't notice most of them at all except that I browse at -1.
While I cannot prove that it's solely the editors doing that, it is known that editors have infinite modpoints. So I consider it quite plausible, especially considering that I can't be the only user who considers it useful information when someone points out what may be an undisclosed marketing motive. I tend to mod those "Informative" myself so long as they are thoughtful and can back up what they say. I have seen more unlikely things happen, I admit, but I have a hard time imagining that the majority of moderators find such information so objectionable.
I dislike it, especially when used by intelligent people, as it attempts to construct a hierarchy, ranking multi-faceted people by one characteristic. That characteristic being one the author finds or thinks themselves gifted.
I think that's the crux of the matter and I believe it can be resolved.
The key is when I said that I personally think such people could choose to think for themselves. I just believe that for various reasons that boil down to forms of conditioning, they don't. The fact that they could, that they have the capability means that in my heart I believe people are inherently and fundamentally equal. It is the priorities and goals and their decision-making that can make them unequal.
Some decisions are better than others. You are free to make a good decision or a bad decision, and so am I. That's why there is no hierarchy even though it's possible that you might make a great decision and I might make a self-defeating decision or vice-versa. There's no hierarchy because neither of us should have to bow down to the other over this. The only thing we should be prepared to do is live with our decision-making and not take the escapist path of finding ways to blame someone else.
Many people make decisions without a full awareness of the entirety of their implications. This is obvious. If this never happened, there would never be such things as heroin addicts or violent criminals. It's just that those are extreme examples and it is easy to see that something is wrong with those choices. It's more subtle when someone is far too easily influenced and does not derive their important decisions from a solid set of principles. But without a doubt this tendency is a major component of why we have the particular society, political institutions, and educational system that we have today.
"Sheeple" and any contempt associated with the word is easy to understand. It comes from the fact that such people exist in great numbers. What they want and the bad decisions they make often affect others very much against thier will. When it comes down to it, I recognize your right as an adult to do whatever you like with your own life, so long as you don't make it my problem or expect me to bear your consequences. Due to network effects the sheeple are failing that standard and the rest of us don't want to inherit the unsustainable world they are building.
And on how many distros does sharing the sound card between different accounts (you know, that thing I was actually talking about) work by default?
Considering this is a default kernel setting and all distros are using a Linux kernel this figure would approach 100%. Simply put, if your kernel has ALSA support it has dmix. Your kernel does have ALSA support. Dmix has no purpose other than to allow multiple sounds to be played simultaneously. Dmix does not care about whether they came from multiple accounts.
If you had decency you would be embarassed that you are entering into this discussion without knowing basic facts like that. You would also admit that you shouldn't be spouting information that's more than six years out-of-date, that this makes your opinions about ALSA invalid. That's if you cared about truth and weren't just trying to posture and hand-wave.
That's a terrible default behavior. If the other user's desktop and applications go away when you switch to your account, why should their sound stay? It's inconsistent. I don't want to hear a random ad suddenly at high volume because somebody else left a webpage open that cycles through ads and eventually plays one with sound. A person should be able to use sound without logging into other people's accounts and closing their programs first.
For a user to have access to play sound, you must first add them to the audio group. If a user only ever connects remotely through something like SSH, then obviously you wouldn't give them permissions to play sounds on your hardware. Instead, the sound could be played on their own. This is how remote desktops work. If you have to pick such a stupid scenario to discredit something, you are actually adding credibility to the thing you tried to discredit. The scenario you are crying about simply wouldn't happen, and if it does happen, you are seriously doing something wrong and that'd be your fault, not ALSA's.
I'll give you a non-retarded example of multiple users. I have my main user account. Then I have a separate restricted user account for the sole purpose of running Wine since I do not trust Windows programs. When I play Fallout: New Vegas in Wine under that second account, I can hear all the game sounds. At the same time, I can run Amarok under my main user account and select background music. The window for Fallout and the window for Amarok are side-by-side on my taskbar. It would serve no useful purpose whatsoever to allow one of these to monopolize the sound. It serves a very useful purpose allowing both to play sound.
I don't have to "log into other people's accounts and close their programs." When I am done playing Fallout, I close the game. Any sounds it was playing close with it. The fact that it runs under a separate user account has nothing whatsoever to do with this. This is the scenario I already described for you. You could have figured out on your own that your made-up little objection there wouldn't apply.
It sounds like you are saying it was the specific wine user that had no audio, rather than the second concurrent login that had no audio. If that's the case, then this isn't a multiple user bug.
Ok, I'll break it down for you in easy-to-digest little baby steps since apparently this is difficult for you.
Assume a running KDE desktop belong to a user account. Let's call this user account "bob". Firefox, Amarok, Thunderbird, Konsole, and a few other programs are running on this KDE desktop. Any of them that use sound are playing it through Pulseaudio. Sound works, so far.
Now then, we want to play a game under Wine. We do this under a different user, let's call this username "alice". There are multiple ways to run something as this other user, but let's keep it simple. We click that Konsole window. We type "su alice -" and enter the password. We are now in/home/alice. We launch Fallo
hence the burden is on dissenters to demonstrate why a given alternative way of thinking should even be entertained
I think that's actually part of the mindfuck. I disagree with the whole notion, really. As a thinking man the burden, if you want to call it that, is on me as an individual to familiarize myself with several different, incompatible philosophies before I can begin to consider myself qualified to choose one in which to believe. I definitely don't need someone to sell it to me and in fact I am suspicious of people who feel a need to do that.
One of the biggest parts of the problem is that there are so many passive, intellectually lazy people whose decision-making is altered by the group that has the most prominence and visibility. They will not leave no stone unturned in their search for truth. They will just assume that whatever looks the most widespread and successful must have inherent merit. Some of that is from being passive and lazy, while some of that comes from the need cowardly people have to derive a (false) sense of security from membership in a large group of like-minded people. Being a genuine individual is not for the faint of heart.
The hard thing to accept is that a lot of people who are phony don't know they are phony. In fact they would likely have some kind of mental breakdown if it were suddenly and undeniably revealed to them. When a person identifies that strongly with an external thing that is not really part of them at all, losing that thing feels to them like a sort of death. That's why so many people will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics and engage in all kinds of irrational behaviors just to avoid seeing simple facts.
So where your comment fails to be convincing is in your thinking that the divide is (or even can) still remain at 50/50, under this subtle onslaught.
I'd conjecture that it's because those who dissent are in a unique position to see the falsehood of what the Left is doing and therefore cannot be convinced by their methods. It just tends to be more of a "grassroots" or individualistic sort of dissent. Those who don't buy into the whole "left vs. right" bullshit have no major organization or political force or media presence to represent them. The bad thing is that they are severely marginalized no matter what their numbers. The good thing about this is that their numbers are quite a bit larger than it would appear.
The problem is that 'sheeple' is a meme, it's a good example of what it describes, quick judgement without evidence or thought.
By that definition the word "meme" is a meme.
There's no judgment involved in acknowledging that people fitting the definition of this word exist and that their actions have consequences. Now if I pointed to a particular individual and called him a "sheeple" that would be making a judgment. Then it would be valid to question whether I have evidence that this individual fails to think for himself and therefore fits the definition. That's the crucial difference. It's sort of like the world "criminals" -- they certainly do exist, they certainly affect others, but anyone pointing to someone and saying "he's a criminal!" better have evidence to back that up.
If you want a word stricken from the dictionary because it bothers you so much, launch a campaign. Until you succeed in doing that, the word is valid, it has a known definition, and some people fit that definition.
I'm sorry that these facts didn't consult you and obtain your approval before becoming facts. They didn't, so now it's time for some good ol' blame the messenger. So now you feel some emotional need to "put that guy in his place" for recognizing an unpleasant reality. Since you're talking to me about ego, you may as well learn more about how it functions. If you're sharp you'll see that it always seems justified in its own eyes, always because of what the other guy did, never because of what kind of standard you'd like to uphold no matter what the other guy does. The effect is that your (re)actions and your well-being are controlled by what others do and that, sir, is slavery.
There's too much to read already. Someone who uses the term sheeple is likely to be going to waste the next two paragraphs and minutes of my life in an ill considered attempt to distinguish themselves by repeating a basic observation in the name of ego.
No one who writes a few paragraphs can waste your time without your consent. Therefore, it's useless to complain to anyone other than your image in the mirror about this. You want to relieve yourself of that personal responsibility by blaming me for using a word, or can you see the error in that?
"Distinguishing yourself" in this context would depend first on whether you care about impressing random strangers on Slashdot. I for one don't, though if I did I imagine I would always say things that everyone always likes to hear so I can obtain their approval. You want to talk about things done in the name of ego, that's one in which I am happy not to engage.
I'd rather associate with people who don't need to agree with me or approve of my views in order to get along and enjoy genuine mutual respect. They'll find me happy to reciprocate. The rest tend to identify themselves rather quickly by looking for some way to belittle or to show me their self-importance, which they are often eager to do. Of course that's somehow my fault, right?
Not really, however, people who make ad hominem attacks like you do in fact lose instantly.
I like how you invoked your own law to instantly dismantle your own point.
His point, although not a truth, was a valid observation that referring to other people as sheep or sheeple will cause many people to downgrade their opinion of you, thus diminishing ability to make your case.
Sounds like an efficient filter to me. The people who cannot separate the point being made from their personal tastes, preferences, and feelings about how the point is made weren't likely to contribute anything deep and meaningful anyway. They're too busy getting offended and worrying about things they can't control. The people who deal with the same distaste by providing an example of what they believe to be the better way, those are the ones I'd like to hear from.
Like it or not (and I really, really don't like it) there are a lot of people who don't think for themselves. I personally believe they are capable of thinking for themselves but for various reasons, they don't. They are easy targets for various political and marketing forces that end up shaping society to cater to this mindset, very much against the wishes of the rest of us. That network effect is the only reason anyone is concerned about them, otherwise there'd be no reason to care if they want to be that way. "Sheeple" is as good a word for them as any. It's only insulting if you highly value the ability to think for yourself, and if you do, then it wouldn't apply to you.
"Food stamps are a government response to a problem created by government."
If you are unable for a moment to entertain the possibility, you then cannot understand how that might be exactly the case. These are not the actions of a person who is secure in his dissenting beliefs.
it always amazes me the creative stretches stubborn minds will go to to smoosh reality into their ideology, rather than reflect and adjust their ideology to fit reality
The unwillingness to consider and examine for merit other points of view is the most obvious mark of stubborn minds. If you really love truth, you have to cope with the possibility that even your very most cherished beliefs might be completely wrong. If that sounds unreasonable it's because you love feeling right more than you love truth.
The most sure way to adjust your ideology to fit reality is to constantly test both your ideology and your notion of reality. They are too often one and the same, often in insidious ways that wouldn't occur to you. Questioning these things is important and the ability to question them means you can better understand viewpoints with which you disagree in terms of why that person might feel that way.
To mundanely explain the point, if biased people knew that they were biased and fully understood what that meant, they would not be biased because they would respond to that knowledge by abandoning their bias. There is no bias more difficult to evict than the eagerness to believe you have figured something out and can give the final answers.
It's most unfortunate for many that few things are as they appear. It seems like the greatest difficulty comes from the things that superficially look kind and self-less, at least until you examine them deeply enough to see that beneath the surface, those same actions reinforce and make comfortable the weaknesses people have. They're the very things that least deserve comfort. They would be recognized for what they are and summarily shed, were they not so comfortable.
The cliched saying is the one about giving a man a fish so he eats for a day, which looks like a generous thing to do, versus teaching a man how to fish so he may always feed himself. Ultimately, the gift of independence is genuinely good and dignifying in a way that the gift of a meal is not, even though starvation and compassion for those who starve can make it hard to take the long view which can tell the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
First class people choose first class people; second class people choose fourth class people; third class people choose ninth class people; and so on; and so on.
It's a failure of the moderation system that I need to scroll past a dozen irrelevant comments about the article's date before I find one that addresses the actual topic. Anyway...
Not only are you right about this, but the logic the judge used was quite faulty and I can trivially demonstrate why:
Using that logic, they could discriminate racially or on religious grounds. "Anyone who scored too black was rejected" or "anyone who scored too Muslim was rejected". I mean hey, they apply that standard to everyone so it surely could not contradict the principles of equal protection. That's why this is absurd.
I'll never understand what it is about a law degree and a bench that fundamentally distorts someone's ability to use solid logic. If I can see the flaw in seconds couldn't this judge maybe think on it a bit before committing it to a ruling that will affect a man's life?
It's as though the judge had a personal objection to having high-IQ police officers and was looking for an excuse to disallow them.
Yeah I'm not a fan of the defense spending, but looking at the rest of the money I'm pretty content with where it went. I'd like a bit more to STEM and a bit less to corn, but then I am an engineering grad student; were I a corn farmer I might feel differently:)
Were you a corn farmer you should recuse yourself from the issue, at least in any official capacity.
If the parent is the driver of the vehicle and single adult present, then this option is not really an option. A few senteces here or there can help break the trance of the drive. But trying to have any kind of sustained conversation can lead to accidents. It's just as bad as talking on the phone and driving.
Actually there is something particular about talking on a cellphone. It affects driving in a way that conversing with a physically present passenger does not. That's why it has been noticed as a problem, laws have been passed against it, controversies have arisen, studies have been made, etc, when no such effects have arisen out of having more than one person physically occupying a vehicle.
There's even been some interesting speculation about whether the microwave radiation might affect the brain in ways we have not yet realized, causing an effect something like impairment. There's definitely something missing from the picture because study after study keeps showing that talking on a cell phone, even on hands-free mode, affects driving in a way that chatting with a passenger doesn't. The only thing we don't know for sure is the reason why.
If I had to choose between sharing a highway with a driver who has a BAC of 0.08 and a driver who is talking on a cell phone, I'm not so sure I wouldn't choose the driver who's been drinking. At least he *knows* he's impaired and should be using extra caution, giving himself more distance/time to react, etc. I'm not really interested in intensely emotional reactions to that previous statement; there are MADD meetings which would be happy to accommodate those.
oohOohhh OOOOH! Well reasoned and said. I guess Apple doesn't vet and approve each and every item in the App store, and never ever pulls anything it considers offensive to its strict code....
Anyway, I was reacting to the quick draw "blame the parents" crap, not so much the Apple bashing.
The parents are the ones making the purchasing decisions. That means they are to blame, ultimately, for being naive and trusting instead of knowing what they were buying. Parents like this are why you have companies like this who create problems like this. Is the company doing something bad here? Yes, it is. But take that a step further. What is the ultimate financial foundation that had to be laid down first before the company could dream of doing that? There had to be a market for it.
When I really want to solve a problem, I find its ultimate cause. I don't hack at its leaves and branches. I go straight for its root. If what I find there is not really what I wanted to hear, if it reminds me that we do not have a perfect world where you can invest blind faith in a company and never get screwed, I deal with it anyway. Otherwise I am not responsible enough to start telling corporations or anyone else how responsible they should become. This is doubly true for parents who are additionally charged with the awesome responsibility of nurturing and protecting a human life and gradually teaching it to deal wisely with the world as it is.
It'd be a hell of a lot harder to operate an unethical corporation if people were wiser, more savvy, less naive, and performed due diligence. Really it'd be damn near impossible to be unethical without clearly and obviously breaking criminal law.
We have the same problem in the marketplace that we have in government: the real power does come from the regular people, but they have forgotten that. They have abdicated their own responsibility (due diligence) and are shocked that this leaves room for any bad result to happen. The principle here is really simple: if the average person is willing to reward unethical behavior with profits then you have just incentivized unethical behavior and can expect it to florish. This is a case of the corporations following the lead of their patrons and giving them what they are willing to buy, for better or for worse.
Far from excusing the unethical behavior of the corporations and those who run them, this is in fact the best and most certain way to put a stop to it. There's no way in hell I personally would have ever ended up in this situation because I am willing to learn about a device before sinking hundreds of dollars into it and its associated costs. I'm doing my part. Those who don't think that matters leave themselves open to this kind of problem while at the same time rewarding the very behavior they'll complain when it affects them.
This is the viewpoint of the responsible adult who understands that actions have consequences and that making a purchase is voting with your dollars. The blame game and the victim role is for those who are unable to handle this. It's simply the truth.
To get a driver's license you have to pass a written and driving test.
To get a concealed weapons permit you have to pass a written test and proficiency test.
In some cities to have a dog you need a license.
To spawn, all it takes is boredom and ignorance.
I think there is actually a sort of logic to that.
If we as a civilization have become so decadent and degenerate that parents are no longer willing to do whatever is necessary to provide their children with a good, stable, loving home so that hopefully their children can have a better life than they did, then we are already so far gone that we have deeper problems than a licensing system is likely to solve.
That's without getting into issues like: has the government displayed such competence and excellence and wisdom in all the other things it tries to handle these days that you could make a compelling case for its worthiness of being entrusted with such an important decision as parenting?
I really should have emphasized the sarcasm and personal frustration of "Who told them parenting wasn't hard work?" I agree with everything you've laid out. Too many people don't realize the work required to raise a child. I do infact love that there is a charity that will pay drug an alcohol abusers to be sterilized so that they can't have children. It may be controversial but at least somebody is being proactive about improving this messed up society.
Yes, but truth hurts especially when it involves facts we'd rather not admit about things that tend to get idolized like motherhood. Done wisely there'd be no need to put it on a pedestal because it would stand on the merits of its own inherent virtues. Done poorly the damage it does to society is quite real simply because of the awesome responsibility it represents. Personally I am all for adults doing whatever they want to do, up until they allow their bad decision-making to affect others.
Far as the sterilization charity is concerned, it's on a voluntary basis. Someone in that category who does not wish to be sterilized can simply elect not to seek the aid of this particular charity. End of controversy. What is it about adults making decisions for their own lives that would ever be such a big deal?
The only thing surprising me is that the AC wasn't instantly modded "-1 Troll" but I am sure they're getting around to it. How dare someone state an unpleasant truth without first kissing ass, apologizing, begging the reader not to be offended, reassuring us of their benevolence, disclaiming claims that were never actually made to appease the knee-jerks, etc. Doesn't he know that we're living in an age where disagreement with someone makes them the devil and everything they say is automatically malicious?
Lets face it, this is a really slimy business model. For Apple to allow it is atrocious. There are much better alternatives, such as a short window to allow returns. I have kids with iOS devices, and thus hoping they win. Bad parenting? I don't have time to play every game to know its business model, but do try to stick to pay only games just to try my best to avoid them.
I agree with you about the business model. That's why I don't buy iPhones. That's why I wouldn't buy them for anyone else, especially someone too young to be expected to understand financial responsibility. Problem solved. If Apple starts feeling lost sales they can do something about this -- they certainly have enough control over the platform and the App Store. If Apple doesn't care about that and feels satisfied with their sales figures, I can continue using and recommending something else.
One way or another I'm not going to end up in this position. If I somehow did anyway, I'd chalk it up to another lesson learned. It wouldn't occur to me to run to a lawyer hoping he could bail me out of it. I might do that if force or fraud was involved, but me making a bad decision when I should have informed myself does not constitute fraud on the part of the other party.
"Patriotic Duty" to what?
Europe as a government isn't based on a ideology - it's based on practicality (no matter what the citizens of the member states may think :S). It just happens that many of the member states share similar ideologies.
We owe no duty to it (though we do pay some :P) - in fact if anything many countries will view it as their patriotic duty not to obey Europe, when it's not in their countries interest.
"Patriotism" has a true meaning and it has a false meaning. The true meaning is like that saying about loving your country so much that you politically oppose its government when its government gets out of control (just to be clear - I am talking about political, civil, non-violent opposition).
The false meaning is more like mindlessly supporting its government so you can feel like you're part of something greater than yourself with no regard for whether the government deserves your support. It's usually driven by "us against them" which is why it becomes so popular after the country is attacked by a foreign enemy.
For that matter, neither does most of the US.
You nailed it. The US doesn't but the media can be absolutely convincing that it does. They only need to beat the drums of patriotism and focus on press releases made by the government since they are "official sources". They are unlikely to delve too deeply into whether that's really representative of the rest of the population. They're too busy defining a convenient norm that sells advertising.
Corporations will win. Always.
FTFS:
no ISP can be required to filter the Internet
Well it does say can be required to, that doesn't mean they can't be convinced, paid, or otherwise motivated to filter the Internet.
Europe can always take a page from the US's playbook: the next time there's something to be remotely afraid of, it can be declared their "patriotic duty" to filter, monitor, etc. That can be done without passing a single law.
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
Poetic.
Someone should mod this up.
Windows firewall programs aren't really firewalls, for the most part. They're more like ACLs for API calls involving sockets.
That's why when you run a Windows "firewall" program you don't generally see things like IP addresses, masks, protocols, port numbers, and state information. If you do, it's buried in the menus someplace, not the core function of the program, and likely added as a limited afterthought. They're definitely not a great example of bloat but they are certainly more resource-intensive than something like iptables and the relevant *nix kernel support.
The few times I have used a Windows sytem in the last several years, it was most disappointing. Where you could just write a few rules to cover your needs, now you have to go through a tedious list of programs and incrementally enable each one that may want to use a particular protocol after, of course, having some system tray pop-up distract you from whatever you were trying to get done. Depending on the "firewall", you may have to do it again when you upgrade/update the program since the executable has changed.
Really the only justification for this is the terrible host security of so many Windows systems, which leads to the hope that a strange executable the user has never seen before that wants to use the network might get noticed. It's one of the least efficient ways to operate a firewall. The need to enforce permissions that apply to system calls (of any kind, whether they are related to sockets, disks, etc) should be a core OS function that requires no third-party utilities. The need to regulate network traffic is a different problem that would properly have a different solution.
Honestly it's a fucking inelegant mess but it avoids the BIG SCARY OH NOES!! of requiring users who want to adjust a firewall to know a few things about how networks and firewalls work (sort of like the way we expect people who want to tinker with an engine to have skill as a mechanic and no one calls that unreasonable) or, failing that, to hire/consult someone who does. Like most of the culture surrounding Windows really. For those people who like it this way, use what you like and I say more power to you. To me, it's downright suffocating. I'd much, MUCH rather spend a few minutes reading up on networking, learn it one time, and do it the simple/elegant way from them on, rather than continuously do everything the hard way solely to avoid a little reading.
This set of priorities, more than anything else, is the difference between Windows "computing as a product" and many other systems. You can spend a great deal of time looking at differences in design and technologies without having a satisfying understanding of why things work out the way they do.
As far as antivirus goes, it's a terrible substitute for a good security system that doesn't treat the user like an illiterate idiot. I'm wondering how much worse the malware problem has to get before more people are willing to admit that antivirus is at best a band-aid and does not address the problem of security. Usually things have to become some big-ass crisis before people are willing to say "you know, the way we've been doing things doesn't work, maybe it's time to try another approach." Until then, those who said all along that something is not sustainable, is moving in the wrong direction, and lacks long-term viability are ignored and marginalized. Too often, that's the way it works.
Pfft. That's nothing. My browser release goes all the way to 11. It also supports the "beating-a-dead-meme" tag.
Don't worry. Dead memes usually get modded up around here.
For some reason.
Office 2010 on ARM was demonstrated during CES in January. Also, .NET apps should be binary compatible. It would not surprise me if it is easier to port 32-bit apps to ARM than it is to port them to amd64.
AMD64 is capable of running 32-bit code. So, are you saying Windows doesn't have some kind of functional equivalent to Linux's multilib? If not, that would be surprising. One would expect that a port to ARM would be much more difficult than getting 32-bit code to run on AMD64, an operation which has no good reason to require a port.
Note, multilib has nothing to do with Linux's open-source nature. It's how users of 64-bit Linux run things like Adobe Flash which are only available as 32-bit closed-source code (unless you count the "64-bit preview" they are just now offering).
So far as I have noticed, every tool you have mentioned is for Windows.
Have you tried playing this game under Wine on a Linux machine? For the multi-core problems, you can build Wine without threads support which will confine it to one CPU. There are probably easier ways to arrange that as well. Wine also gives an option to select which version of Windows you are presenting to the application, from Windows 2.0 (not a typo) to Win 7. Generally, any behavior Wine exhibits that differs from the way that the relevant version of Windows would have behaved is considered a bug and fixed.
I have no idea if that would work for this game but I generally have excellent luck with Wine and Windows games though for most, you do have to crack the DRM simply because Wine won't allow programs to install Windows device drivers or otherwise to sink their hooks into the guts of the system. Something like the Sony rootkit wouldn't work under Wine for that reason. If you are concerned about other malware you can create a separate restricted user account for Wine that doesn't even need to have network access.
If you don't have a Linux system handy, trying this out would be as simple as booting from a live CD. Knoppix would be a good one to try.
It's not hard to see why the public at large is opposed to nuclear power: see the above headline. What is evidently much harder to see is why that opposition is extremely unreasonable, particularly in relation to power by fossil fuels.
It's unreasonable because it's emotional and based on the fear of something that most people don't really understand. Whenever "nuclear" comes up it's hard for many people to imagine anything other than mushroom clouds and Chernobyl.
I'd be curious about whether a pebble bed reactor would have fared better. If so then this is like so many other things in that it's not about what we do but how we go about doing it.
You'd think that Ring 0 hacks would constitute unlawful modification of the OS itself.
Where's Microsoft in this?
At the bank.
Can't the editor, "Roblimo," proofread the submission? Isn't that practically their entire function?
Can they? Yes. Do they? No. They don't even run basic spell-checkers as evidenced by multiple finalized submissions. I'd personally be ashamed to put my name to much of the work they produce. If they worked in the other 99.99999% of job positions bearing the title "editor" they would be fired due to poor job performance. In this shitty job market I imagine there are many thousands of people who would be happy to do better.
I don't get to slack like that in my job. If the "editors" here started acting like they were semi-worthy of the title I would seriously consider a paid subscription. Note, I don't expect perfection or anything like that. I just want them to at least try.
They should stop calling themselves "editors". Another title like perhaps "reposters" would be more appropriate and would remove the expectation that they act like, well, editors.
I notice that any post pointing out that the ad-laden blog they chose to link in the summary is one of the worst and least-direct (second-hand or third-hand) sources available for the story, or pointing out that (particularly for book reviews) the story itself is likely a Slashvertisement, well those get very quickly modded to oblivion. And I do mean *quickly*. I wouldn't notice most of them at all except that I browse at -1.
While I cannot prove that it's solely the editors doing that, it is known that editors have infinite modpoints. So I consider it quite plausible, especially considering that I can't be the only user who considers it useful information when someone points out what may be an undisclosed marketing motive. I tend to mod those "Informative" myself so long as they are thoughtful and can back up what they say. I have seen more unlikely things happen, I admit, but I have a hard time imagining that the majority of moderators find such information so objectionable.
I think that's the crux of the matter and I believe it can be resolved.
The key is when I said that I personally think such people could choose to think for themselves. I just believe that for various reasons that boil down to forms of conditioning, they don't. The fact that they could, that they have the capability means that in my heart I believe people are inherently and fundamentally equal. It is the priorities and goals and their decision-making that can make them unequal.
Some decisions are better than others. You are free to make a good decision or a bad decision, and so am I. That's why there is no hierarchy even though it's possible that you might make a great decision and I might make a self-defeating decision or vice-versa. There's no hierarchy because neither of us should have to bow down to the other over this. The only thing we should be prepared to do is live with our decision-making and not take the escapist path of finding ways to blame someone else.
Many people make decisions without a full awareness of the entirety of their implications. This is obvious. If this never happened, there would never be such things as heroin addicts or violent criminals. It's just that those are extreme examples and it is easy to see that something is wrong with those choices. It's more subtle when someone is far too easily influenced and does not derive their important decisions from a solid set of principles. But without a doubt this tendency is a major component of why we have the particular society, political institutions, and educational system that we have today.
"Sheeple" and any contempt associated with the word is easy to understand. It comes from the fact that such people exist in great numbers. What they want and the bad decisions they make often affect others very much against thier will. When it comes down to it, I recognize your right as an adult to do whatever you like with your own life, so long as you don't make it my problem or expect me to bear your consequences. Due to network effects the sheeple are failing that standard and the rest of us don't want to inherit the unsustainable world they are building.
Considering this is a default kernel setting and all distros are using a Linux kernel this figure would approach 100%. Simply put, if your kernel has ALSA support it has dmix. Your kernel does have ALSA support. Dmix has no purpose other than to allow multiple sounds to be played simultaneously. Dmix does not care about whether they came from multiple accounts.
If you had decency you would be embarassed that you are entering into this discussion without knowing basic facts like that. You would also admit that you shouldn't be spouting information that's more than six years out-of-date, that this makes your opinions about ALSA invalid. That's if you cared about truth and weren't just trying to posture and hand-wave.
For a user to have access to play sound, you must first add them to the audio group. If a user only ever connects remotely through something like SSH, then obviously you wouldn't give them permissions to play sounds on your hardware. Instead, the sound could be played on their own. This is how remote desktops work. If you have to pick such a stupid scenario to discredit something, you are actually adding credibility to the thing you tried to discredit. The scenario you are crying about simply wouldn't happen, and if it does happen, you are seriously doing something wrong and that'd be your fault, not ALSA's.
I'll give you a non-retarded example of multiple users. I have my main user account. Then I have a separate restricted user account for the sole purpose of running Wine since I do not trust Windows programs. When I play Fallout: New Vegas in Wine under that second account, I can hear all the game sounds. At the same time, I can run Amarok under my main user account and select background music. The window for Fallout and the window for Amarok are side-by-side on my taskbar. It would serve no useful purpose whatsoever to allow one of these to monopolize the sound. It serves a very useful purpose allowing both to play sound.
I don't have to "log into other people's accounts and close their programs." When I am done playing Fallout, I close the game. Any sounds it was playing close with it. The fact that it runs under a separate user account has nothing whatsoever to do with this. This is the scenario I already described for you. You could have figured out on your own that your made-up little objection there wouldn't apply.
Ok, I'll break it down for you in easy-to-digest little baby steps since apparently this is difficult for you.
Assume a running KDE desktop belong to a user account. Let's call this user account "bob". Firefox, Amarok, Thunderbird, Konsole, and a few other programs are running on this KDE desktop. Any of them that use sound are playing it through Pulseaudio. Sound works, so far.
Now then, we want to play a game under Wine. We do this under a different user, let's call this username "alice". There are multiple ways to run something as this other user, but let's keep it simple. We click that Konsole window. We type "su alice -" and enter the password. We are now in /home/alice. We launch Fallo
I think that's actually part of the mindfuck. I disagree with the whole notion, really. As a thinking man the burden, if you want to call it that, is on me as an individual to familiarize myself with several different, incompatible philosophies before I can begin to consider myself qualified to choose one in which to believe. I definitely don't need someone to sell it to me and in fact I am suspicious of people who feel a need to do that.
One of the biggest parts of the problem is that there are so many passive, intellectually lazy people whose decision-making is altered by the group that has the most prominence and visibility. They will not leave no stone unturned in their search for truth. They will just assume that whatever looks the most widespread and successful must have inherent merit. Some of that is from being passive and lazy, while some of that comes from the need cowardly people have to derive a (false) sense of security from membership in a large group of like-minded people. Being a genuine individual is not for the faint of heart.
The hard thing to accept is that a lot of people who are phony don't know they are phony. In fact they would likely have some kind of mental breakdown if it were suddenly and undeniably revealed to them. When a person identifies that strongly with an external thing that is not really part of them at all, losing that thing feels to them like a sort of death. That's why so many people will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics and engage in all kinds of irrational behaviors just to avoid seeing simple facts.
I'd conjecture that it's because those who dissent are in a unique position to see the falsehood of what the Left is doing and therefore cannot be convinced by their methods. It just tends to be more of a "grassroots" or individualistic sort of dissent. Those who don't buy into the whole "left vs. right" bullshit have no major organization or political force or media presence to represent them. The bad thing is that they are severely marginalized no matter what their numbers. The good thing about this is that their numbers are quite a bit larger than it would appear.
By that definition the word "meme" is a meme.
There's no judgment involved in acknowledging that people fitting the definition of this word exist and that their actions have consequences. Now if I pointed to a particular individual and called him a "sheeple" that would be making a judgment. Then it would be valid to question whether I have evidence that this individual fails to think for himself and therefore fits the definition. That's the crucial difference. It's sort of like the world "criminals" -- they certainly do exist, they certainly affect others, but anyone pointing to someone and saying "he's a criminal!" better have evidence to back that up.
If you want a word stricken from the dictionary because it bothers you so much, launch a campaign. Until you succeed in doing that, the word is valid, it has a known definition, and some people fit that definition.
I'm sorry that these facts didn't consult you and obtain your approval before becoming facts. They didn't, so now it's time for some good ol' blame the messenger. So now you feel some emotional need to "put that guy in his place" for recognizing an unpleasant reality. Since you're talking to me about ego, you may as well learn more about how it functions. If you're sharp you'll see that it always seems justified in its own eyes, always because of what the other guy did, never because of what kind of standard you'd like to uphold no matter what the other guy does. The effect is that your (re)actions and your well-being are controlled by what others do and that, sir, is slavery.
No one who writes a few paragraphs can waste your time without your consent. Therefore, it's useless to complain to anyone other than your image in the mirror about this. You want to relieve yourself of that personal responsibility by blaming me for using a word, or can you see the error in that?
"Distinguishing yourself" in this context would depend first on whether you care about impressing random strangers on Slashdot. I for one don't, though if I did I imagine I would always say things that everyone always likes to hear so I can obtain their approval. You want to talk about things done in the name of ego, that's one in which I am happy not to engage.
I'd rather associate with people who don't need to agree with me or approve of my views in order to get along and enjoy genuine mutual respect. They'll find me happy to reciprocate. The rest tend to identify themselves rather quickly by looking for some way to belittle or to show me their self-importance, which they are often eager to do. Of course that's somehow my fault, right?
I like how you invoked your own law to instantly dismantle your own point.
His point, although not a truth, was a valid observation that referring to other people as sheep or sheeple will cause many people to downgrade their opinion of you, thus diminishing ability to make your case.
Sounds like an efficient filter to me. The people who cannot separate the point being made from their personal tastes, preferences, and feelings about how the point is made weren't likely to contribute anything deep and meaningful anyway. They're too busy getting offended and worrying about things they can't control. The people who deal with the same distaste by providing an example of what they believe to be the better way, those are the ones I'd like to hear from.
Like it or not (and I really, really don't like it) there are a lot of people who don't think for themselves. I personally believe they are capable of thinking for themselves but for various reasons, they don't. They are easy targets for various political and marketing forces that end up shaping society to cater to this mindset, very much against the wishes of the rest of us. That network effect is the only reason anyone is concerned about them, otherwise there'd be no reason to care if they want to be that way. "Sheeple" is as good a word for them as any. It's only insulting if you highly value the ability to think for yourself, and if you do, then it wouldn't apply to you.
If you are unable for a moment to entertain the possibility, you then cannot understand how that might be exactly the case. These are not the actions of a person who is secure in his dissenting beliefs.
The unwillingness to consider and examine for merit other points of view is the most obvious mark of stubborn minds. If you really love truth, you have to cope with the possibility that even your very most cherished beliefs might be completely wrong. If that sounds unreasonable it's because you love feeling right more than you love truth.
The most sure way to adjust your ideology to fit reality is to constantly test both your ideology and your notion of reality. They are too often one and the same, often in insidious ways that wouldn't occur to you. Questioning these things is important and the ability to question them means you can better understand viewpoints with which you disagree in terms of why that person might feel that way.
To mundanely explain the point, if biased people knew that they were biased and fully understood what that meant, they would not be biased because they would respond to that knowledge by abandoning their bias. There is no bias more difficult to evict than the eagerness to believe you have figured something out and can give the final answers.
It's most unfortunate for many that few things are as they appear. It seems like the greatest difficulty comes from the things that superficially look kind and self-less, at least until you examine them deeply enough to see that beneath the surface, those same actions reinforce and make comfortable the weaknesses people have. They're the very things that least deserve comfort. They would be recognized for what they are and summarily shed, were they not so comfortable.
The cliched saying is the one about giving a man a fish so he eats for a day, which looks like a generous thing to do, versus teaching a man how to fish so he may always feed himself. Ultimately, the gift of independence is genuinely good and dignifying in a way that the gift of a meal is not, even though starvation and compassion for those who starve can make it hard to take the long view which can tell the difference.