Yes. Yes. I have read several books by Ayn Rand - including We The People - so I know that she was extremely anti-communist. I was trying to come up with a patently ridiculous claim as an example of what might happen in a truly totalitarian regime... I guess I was too subtle for you. Oh well. In any case, I think my analogy was appropriate. Whatever. There will be cameras in most neighborhoods within a few years. So you'll find out if you live in an "atmosphere of paranoia and mutual suspicion". I think not - so long as the police aren't dragging you communist sympathisers away in the night;)
The GP post is right (so by extension you are wrong)...
I could go to the cops right now and say that you are a criminal (say drug dealer or something), and if my claims are remotely credible you might be questioned by police. At worst a search warrant may be issued for your house and/or place of business. Assuming I am wrong (or it's not easy for police to get evidence of your guilt) they will eventually go away (and I may be looked at for filing a false police report).
How is this different from things in Nazi Germany, or the USSR, or Cambodia in the late 70s, etc., etc.?
The difference is in the laws, and the tactics of the police after I "denounce" you. Not in the fact that citizens can inform on each other. If I could tell the police that you read Ayn Rand, and are therefore a communist sympathiser... and this prompted them to drag you out of your house in the middle of the night - never to be seen again - then a cultural attitude of parnoia would reign.
The "if there are facilities in this government that I cannot learn about, it must be pretty hard for other governments to learn about them" argument is flawed - as is discussed in TFA. In this case, the main other government that we were concerned with was the USSR, and they had better pictures of every square meter of our soil than a handheld camera pointed out of SkyLab's window could possibly produce.
The problem is not that some pieces of information should really be classified, it's that the documents sit and rot in "classified" files forever. And indeed the rules about what to classify rarely ever change. There probably was a time that the Soviets didn't know what went on at "Area 51", but that was a long, long time ago, and now the Russian intelligence services have a much better idea of what went on there than you or I do.
Think about it this way: if you were an analyst at some alphabet soup agency and you set a document as classified... do you think you might get in trouble for that? What about UN-classifying one?
There should be strict time-limits on classified files, and the longer the time limit, the more high-level signatures should be required. This would serve to counter-balance the natural tendency of intelligence services to just classify everything as "top-secret" and bury it.
Fine, I agree with you that no one should be forced to help others...
And it's OK that everyone is not doing everything they can to help others all the time...
But I reserve the right to call someone who does not take advantage of a unique opportunity to help an a$$hole.
OK, let me get your philosophy down:
So if something bad happens to you as the direct result of your own actions, then you deserve no pity, and no one should bother to help you.
Well, that's just peachy. Are you saying that all of the people you love are very responsible and never do stupid things? If so, then you either are very lucky, or have no loved ones...
Or perhaps you're a pure darwinian:
"No mom, I will not bother to take you to the hospital. It's your own damn fault that you got drunk and broke your ankle in a culvert."
The obvious answer is that the gp poster TRUSTS his government when they tell him/her things...
Things like:
"This particular group of people are terrorists"
"We are attacking Iraq because they pose a threat to the US of A"
"No one had any idea that the levys might break"
"We do not torture"
"We care about the poor, the environment, individual freedoms..."
"I am not a crook"
etc.
What's amazing is that there are still people willing to believe.
Well, faith springs eternal.
How about the objective measurement of percentage of adults who are out of work?
The U.S. Labor Department statistics only include those people who are collecting unemployment benefits (they call it "actively trying to find employment")...
So if you have fallen off the end unemployment (less than a year), were never employed (graduating college students), or are not eligable (quit your last job, etc.), you are not counted.
E.U. statistics include these other categories - so you cannot compare the official statistics because they are counting different things.
Here are some comparisons that come closer to a fair comparison (taken from ):
* United States 9.7 percent
* France 9.6 percent
* Germany 9.3 percent
* European Union 8.8 percent
* Italy 8.5 percent
* Canada 7.6 percent
* Japan 5.2 percent
* United Kingdom 4.9 percent
OK, since nobody has bothered so far, I'll call "bullshit"...
Sure, Saddam was a brutal dictator and obvious asshole, but these are not the traits generally associated with a "terrorist". He had no known links to those that we do know of as terrorists - which is something you cannot say about many rulers the Middle East - and according to the CIA right before the war, posed no credible threat to the US of A. How many other tyrants are out there do you think? Yup, very many, but most of them are smart enough to let the US do what it wants when it wants to. We're typically very happy with our brutal dictators.
As for the Chimp: "evil" may be too strong a word and "idiot" is not necessarily accurate (although that's about all I can think of when I hear him speak)... but in no way has he "kept attacks from happening". He has used 9/11 as a VERY thinly veiled excuse to achieve the goals of his constituency (read: "rich people - particularly in the energy industry").
Now you are no safer (probably less safe), but good ol' US companies can pump oil out of the ground in Iraq and build pipelines through Afghanistan. Yay!
Luckily for you, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I, and each and every member of a community.
The point of democracy is that those services that the majority can agree on (to be freely available) are then provided by the Government (and paid for by everyone - not just those that agree). For instance if 51% of people think that everyone should have a tunafish sandwich on Tuesdays, then the Government should provide them.
The problem pointed out in this article is that forces that really only represent a small percentage of "the people" will attempt to sway public opinion - possibly reversing which opinion is in the majority. In our example, if I own a Delicatessen, I might try to fund a "study" that finds something (anything) wrong with Government supplied tunafish sandwiches.
This is a fundamental difficulty of democracy, and one of the reasons that democracy is not perfect (so what is?).
Indeed. I work for a medium sized company, and there is no pressure at all to work more than 40 hours (except when there are things that must be done at night or on the weekend - which is not very often). In fact, this is my fourth S.E. job, and this story has not changed. So the use of "every" in the grand-parent post is way off.
This is all true...
However, if you loan a dollar to yourself - and then spend it - are you in debt $1? Probably not, but if you need that dollar later, you don't have it!
They say that the Social Security Trust Fund (which is invested in T-Bonds) will last between 20 and 30 more years with current demographic trends. Unfortunately when they "cash in" those T-Bonds to pay benefits, they will have to get the money from "somewhere" (read "from me" if you are a working US Citizen). The point at which SS income will begin to fall short of benefits paid out is right about...
The entire nature of our governmental system revolves around bills that are a combination of things that both groups want. So the question of whether to vote for one is usually not whether you like some of it, but how much you dislike parts of it.
So ANY statement of the form "Well, candidate X voted for a bill that did Y" is total bullsh*t. As is anything about flip-flopping. Might as well accuse a politician of Partisanism: every single one of them does it (because the system in place requires it).
Good for you! You go right ahaid and express your views...
Now don't you wish your party's representatives would give you an honest answer?
I know. That's a cheap shot. It's easy to give an honest answer when you don't have to worry about actually winning the election (note I would respond exactly the same if you had said you are a Democrat).
Clearly the cable will have to be extremely tough to do the job it must do, and it will also have to be very light for that given strength. So it won't break easily...
And even if it did get clobbered by a chunk of some LEO space junk, LEO is between 1 and 5 hundred miles up...
So the bottom.25% of the cable falls down. Big deal - lower it down some and you're back in business.
Actually, I heard that the original masters of Star Wars (circa 1977) were used up due to the unprecedented demand. So it would actually be a huge job to clean up a second or even third generation, overused copy to transferit to DVD.
If you had RTFA, you would already know that King George hated the originals because he couldn't do what he "really wanted" with them, and spent 8 years apologising to anyone who would listen to his ramblings.
This is one of those cases where not having the proper tools, or sufficient time, to do the job created something better than it would have otherwise been.
BTW: Georgie doesn't give a rat's ass what you, a fan, thinks.
As long as they're not making any money off of posting this, what's wrong with mentioning a new product that readers of/. might be interested in?
Do you hassel your freinds when they tell you about something that they saw/got that they think you might like?
Once we figure out which kids are the bad seeds, we can send them directly to prison!
Where they will learn all of the skills necessary to succeed in their chosen field.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. Yes. I have read several books by Ayn Rand - including We The People - so I know that she was extremely anti-communist. I was trying to come up with a patently ridiculous claim as an example of what might happen in a truly totalitarian regime... I guess I was too subtle for you. Oh well. In any case, I think my analogy was appropriate. Whatever. There will be cameras in most neighborhoods within a few years. So you'll find out if you live in an "atmosphere of paranoia and mutual suspicion". I think not - so long as the police aren't dragging you communist sympathisers away in the night ;)
The GP post is right (so by extension you are wrong)...
I could go to the cops right now and say that you are a criminal (say drug dealer or something), and if my claims are remotely credible you might be questioned by police. At worst a search warrant may be issued for your house and/or place of business. Assuming I am wrong (or it's not easy for police to get evidence of your guilt) they will eventually go away (and I may be looked at for filing a false police report).
How is this different from things in Nazi Germany, or the USSR, or Cambodia in the late 70s, etc., etc.?
The difference is in the laws, and the tactics of the police after I "denounce" you. Not in the fact that citizens can inform on each other. If I could tell the police that you read Ayn Rand, and are therefore a communist sympathiser... and this prompted them to drag you out of your house in the middle of the night - never to be seen again - then a cultural attitude of parnoia would reign.
The "if there are facilities in this government that I cannot learn about, it must be pretty hard for other governments to learn about them" argument is flawed - as is discussed in TFA. In this case, the main other government that we were concerned with was the USSR, and they had better pictures of every square meter of our soil than a handheld camera pointed out of SkyLab's window could possibly produce.
The problem is not that some pieces of information should really be classified, it's that the documents sit and rot in "classified" files forever. And indeed the rules about what to classify rarely ever change. There probably was a time that the Soviets didn't know what went on at "Area 51", but that was a long, long time ago, and now the Russian intelligence services have a much better idea of what went on there than you or I do.
Think about it this way: if you were an analyst at some alphabet soup agency and you set a document as classified... do you think you might get in trouble for that? What about UN-classifying one?
There should be strict time-limits on classified files, and the longer the time limit, the more high-level signatures should be required. This would serve to counter-balance the natural tendency of intelligence services to just classify everything as "top-secret" and bury it.
Unless of course, the rat in question is a functional female ;-)
Fine, I agree with you that no one should be forced to help others...
And it's OK that everyone is not doing everything they can to help others all the time...
But I reserve the right to call someone who does not take advantage of a unique opportunity to help an a$$hole.
OK, let me get your philosophy down:
So if something bad happens to you as the direct result of your own actions, then you deserve no pity, and no one should bother to help you.
Well, that's just peachy. Are you saying that all of the people you love are very responsible and never do stupid things? If so, then you either are very lucky, or have no loved ones...
Or perhaps you're a pure darwinian:
"No mom, I will not bother to take you to the hospital. It's your own damn fault that you got drunk and broke your ankle in a culvert."
The obvious answer is that the gp poster TRUSTS his government when they tell him/her things...
Things like:
"This particular group of people are terrorists"
"We are attacking Iraq because they pose a threat to the US of A"
"No one had any idea that the levys might break"
"We do not torture"
"We care about the poor, the environment, individual freedoms..."
"I am not a crook"
etc.
What's amazing is that there are still people willing to believe.
Well, faith springs eternal.
How about the objective measurement of percentage of adults who are out of work?
The U.S. Labor Department statistics only include those people who are collecting unemployment benefits (they call it "actively trying to find employment")...
So if you have fallen off the end unemployment (less than a year), were never employed (graduating college students), or are not eligable (quit your last job, etc.), you are not counted.
E.U. statistics include these other categories - so you cannot compare the official statistics because they are counting different things.
Here are some comparisons that come closer to a fair comparison (taken from ):
* United States 9.7 percent
* France 9.6 percent
* Germany 9.3 percent
* European Union 8.8 percent
* Italy 8.5 percent
* Canada 7.6 percent
* Japan 5.2 percent
* United Kingdom 4.9 percent
OK, since nobody has bothered so far, I'll call "bullshit"...
Sure, Saddam was a brutal dictator and obvious asshole, but these are not the traits generally associated with a "terrorist". He had no known links to those that we do know of as terrorists - which is something you cannot say about many rulers the Middle East - and according to the CIA right before the war, posed no credible threat to the US of A. How many other tyrants are out there do you think? Yup, very many, but most of them are smart enough to let the US do what it wants when it wants to. We're typically very happy with our brutal dictators.
As for the Chimp: "evil" may be too strong a word and "idiot" is not necessarily accurate (although that's about all I can think of when I hear him speak)... but in no way has he "kept attacks from happening". He has used 9/11 as a VERY thinly veiled excuse to achieve the goals of his constituency (read: "rich people - particularly in the energy industry").
Now you are no safer (probably less safe), but good ol' US companies can pump oil out of the ground in Iraq and build pipelines through Afghanistan. Yay!
Luckily for you, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I, and each and every member of a community.
The point of democracy is that those services that the majority can agree on (to be freely available) are then provided by the Government (and paid for by everyone - not just those that agree). For instance if 51% of people think that everyone should have a tunafish sandwich on Tuesdays, then the Government should provide them.
The problem pointed out in this article is that forces that really only represent a small percentage of "the people" will attempt to sway public opinion - possibly reversing which opinion is in the majority. In our example, if I own a Delicatessen, I might try to fund a "study" that finds something (anything) wrong with Government supplied tunafish sandwiches.
This is a fundamental difficulty of democracy, and one of the reasons that democracy is not perfect (so what is?).
Dude, the whole basis of the quiestion was if SUN opens the source for SOLARIS
So "intellectual property concerns" are moot.
Indeed. I work for a medium sized company, and there is no pressure at all to work more than 40 hours (except when there are things that must be done at night or on the weekend - which is not very often). In fact, this is my fourth S.E. job, and this story has not changed. So the use of "every" in the grand-parent post is way off.
Why the 7734 isn't that post score 5 (at time of this post)?
/.ers won't RFTA, then their not going to read a multi-page treatise on it either. Ug.
If I had to guess, I'd say: because it's too long. If
Look it up.
The Social Security "Trust Fund" is invested in US Treasury Bonds.
Where do you suppose the money is going to come from when Social Security needs it?
Yes... YOU.
Or they can borrow the money from someone else this time, but that just means your children will have to pay.
This is all true...
However, if you loan a dollar to yourself - and then spend it - are you in debt $1? Probably not, but if you need that dollar later, you don't have it!
They say that the Social Security Trust Fund (which is invested in T-Bonds) will last between 20 and 30 more years with current demographic trends. Unfortunately when they "cash in" those T-Bonds to pay benefits, they will have to get the money from "somewhere" (read "from me" if you are a working US Citizen). The point at which SS income will begin to fall short of benefits paid out is right about...
Now.
What the hell are you talking about?
The entire nature of our governmental system revolves around bills that are a combination of things that both groups want. So the question of whether to vote for one is usually not whether you like some of it, but how much you dislike parts of it.
So ANY statement of the form "Well, candidate X voted for a bill that did Y" is total bullsh*t. As is anything about flip-flopping. Might as well accuse a politician of Partisanism: every single one of them does it (because the system in place requires it).
No, I was thinking same price for the consumer, half-price for the airplanes, gas, etc.
That's a ridiculous assertion considering the thing was almost always less than half full.
Now on the other hand if they had made it half the size - with a proportional operational savings - they'd still be in business.
Good for you! You go right ahaid and express your views...
Now don't you wish your party's representatives would give you an honest answer?
I know. That's a cheap shot. It's easy to give an honest answer when you don't have to worry about actually winning the election (note I would respond exactly the same if you had said you are a Democrat).
Clearly the cable will have to be extremely tough to do the job it must do, and it will also have to be very light for that given strength. So it won't break easily...
.25% of the cable falls down. Big deal - lower it down some and you're back in business.
And even if it did get clobbered by a chunk of some LEO space junk, LEO is between 1 and 5 hundred miles up...
So the bottom
Oh no! The bottom of the "elevator" will have to be in the middle of the ocean! What good is that? It's too costly to ship things accross the ocean.
Why isn't this guy modded down as a troll?
Actually, I heard that the original masters of Star Wars (circa 1977) were used up due to the unprecedented demand. So it would actually be a huge job to clean up a second or even third generation, overused copy to transferit to DVD.
If you had RTFA, you would already know that King George hated the originals because he couldn't do what he "really wanted" with them, and spent 8 years apologising to anyone who would listen to his ramblings.
This is one of those cases where not having the proper tools, or sufficient time, to do the job created something better than it would have otherwise been.
BTW: Georgie doesn't give a rat's ass what you, a fan, thinks.
Hey, Big Deal!
/. might be interested in?
As long as they're not making any money off of posting this, what's wrong with mentioning a new product that readers of
Do you hassel your freinds when they tell you about something that they saw/got that they think you might like?
Yeah!
Once we figure out which kids are the bad seeds, we can send them directly to prison!
Where they will learn all of the skills necessary to succeed in their chosen field.