No, people with 4.0 are more *conformist* than she is. More often than not they are more so resting on their laurels than actually hard workers.
I know many people who have had lesser GPAs that are off-the-charts brilliant, and just don't fit in to the churning of a degree program.
There's a difference between slacking off or working on unrelated projects and occasionally making B's when you could make A's, and screwing up consistently enough to get a 2.7. Did you jump to reply before reading the next sentence in my post?
She suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.
You had a 2.7 GPA, with a "bachelor of business administration degree in information technology", and a "solid attendance record".
Okay, Trina, you've probably never heard this before, but I'll be frank. Those people with 4.0 GPAs are all probably much smarter than you are. If you had, say, a 3.5 GPA (and perhaps a more serious degree), that might not be the case. It makes sense for people to give them preferential treatment when it comes to employment in jobs that require intelligence and skills specific to their fields.
Considering that you're so lacking in integrity and responsibility that you decided to sue the school because you couldn't find an employer, I'll go out on a limb and say that those people are --in all honesty-- better than you. Had you not responded with such a childish action, I might hesitate to say that. Alas, that is not the case.
If you're unhappy with this, too bad. You can try harder, but now that you've made an ass out of yourself on national news, I don't think you'll convince anyone otherwise.
I don't see how the number of deliberate suicides via firearms "counters" the use of them for self-defense. In fact, I don't see what relevance it has at all, except to "emotionalize" the debate while making no point at all.
It's quick, it minimalizes the risk to others, there's a low rate of failure, no one has to go looking for the body, and the whole thing is in the hands of the person who wants to do it (ie, some subway or semi driver isn't being used as the tool). If someone's going to kill himself, I'd rather he use a gun than throw himself off a building or in front of a train.
A player was being irritating, which is within the rules. The rest of the players turned him into an outcast, which is also within the rules. I don't see the problem here.
You (and the authors of half the comments I've read so far...) must not have read the article. They went beyond attacking or taunting him in the game. Trying to expose someone's identity and falsely accusing them of being a sex offender is WAY outside the rules.
Also, "being irritating" in this case involved playing the game the way it was meant to be played. He wasn't doing things that were merely "technically" allowed. He wanted to roleplay as a hero, so he attacked villains.
The summary headline is inaccurate and inflammatory; its author needs to go back to Fark.
Not a bad idea. But watch out for those textbooks made in the 1860s. I heard that some of them will try to tell you that 2+2=goat.
I know you're joking, but the Ray's Mathematics books were actually pretty good. You may end up learning some antiquated systems of measurement, but that won't hurt anyone.
Are there any good, free resources for learning Algebra and up?
There are plenty of sites and free books online that will get you through calculus. For (elementary, not linear or abstract) algebra, a Google search should net you hundreds of sites. For higher subjects, http://www.theassayer.org/ should get you started.
As Hatta suggested, used bookstores and thrift stores are good for cheap high school-level textbooks. Don't count on finding anything higher than calculus texts, though. If you're looking for texts to study abstract algebra, set theory, game theory, et cetera, you may have to visit a university library to find physical books.
Dreaming up scenarios where my coding skills and knowledge of cutting-edge physics theories gets me women and fame is a really complex thought process. Takes a lot of brain power.
You strike me as the type of person who would become a doctor and then refuse to perform abortions because it was against your "morals".
You think that medical doctors should be obligated to perform them...? I think most doctors would refuse, even if you were able to get your view written into law.
Try leaving decisions about right and wrong up to the supreme court and do your damn job.
The Supreme Court's job isn't to make decisions about what's right and what's wrong. This is also irrelevant, as the poster that you're replying to didn't take a job that involved making weapons and then refuse to do it. He avoided that job in the first place.
I don't share his views (making weapons sounds like a great job to me), but your ranting doesn't make much sense.
It's absurd pedanticism. If Apple says "MacOS X is the easiest to use operating system in the world" do people respond with, no, the operating system that runs my car is easier to use? No they don't because that's obviously comparing apples to oranges. Trying to make a marketing dude look bad by comparing a production desktop OS like Windows to OpenVMS is just time wasting.
Well, Turner is comparing Vista to "open source", which isn't even an operating system. If we decide to be kind and limit the statement to "all open source OSes", he has still opened up quite a can of worms. In either case, that statement isn't limited to "production desktop OSes" (and we aren't talking about technicalities here). I will be very surprised if Vista SP2 stacks up against OpenBSD and hardened Linux.
Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.
That statement is very far-reaching, and Turner seems pretty confident about that. I'd say OpenVMS is a valid comparison, though a "tamer" one such as OpenBSD would be better.;)
Of course, Turner is a businessman speaking to other businessmen, not a professor talking to other professors. I'm amused by the bragging, not angered at the inaccuracy.
agreed. I always have a similar opinion when reading every article I read. I disregard anything that could be false or manipulated, leaving me knowing as much as I did before I started reading the article.
What you finish the article knowing is one side's story, which is fine as long as you keep in mind that it's only one side's story. If it interests you, keep up with the story and keep investigating it.
While it is very well-written (which makes me inclined to believe him), Engle's post doesn't offer any evidence. It's a cry to rally defenders and donations, and that would make sense for him to do in either case. That's what the grandparent post was pointing out. From a look at the comments, scores of Diggers have already made up their minds and are charging off on their steeds as we speak.
That's just a small sample of the outright age, class, gender and race bigotry you get to experience in academic environments.... To the poster: remember that your academic advisors got where they are by being white, male, privileged-class blowhards -- and smarter than average, and specializing in "generating new knowledge" in some field.
...And that's another small sample, somewhat more extreme and less grounded in reality.
The GP said that it was very difficult for people over 30 to change. I think you overreacted more than a little.
I see lots of other places around the world where folks insist on segregating themselves by ethnicity and/or religion. They must hate my home, Silicon Valley.
Most of them don't care, as long as you leave them and the places where they live alone.
The worst lie is that "if someone made it, everyone can make it" -- pleeease. It's the lie of capitalism. Only one person can be the president or the leader of a software team. Would you tell it the guy who you are leading?
"Everyone can make it" doesn't mean that everyone can make it at the same time. It means that everyone can potentially make it (don't worry, the statement is still incorrect, though it was never meant to be taken literally).
Now, while your counterexample and reasoning are invalid, the statement you were trying to disprove is still incorrect. Many people could become the president, but not everyone, because some people lack (1) the ability, (2) the ability to fake having the ability, and (3) the ability to learn either the ability or the ability to fake having the ability. For these people, it is indeed impossible.
Calling it the lie of capitalism doesn't make any more sense than calling it the lie of socialism, or alcoholism.
Not if that editor enjoys being pretentious and deluded with the notion that using obscure, unexplained acronyms makes one intelligent and the reader shamefully ignorant.
Amusingly, they spelled out FOIA, which I bet almost every Slashdotter knows.
So, they actually used the full name for a common acronym, but not for the obscure ones.
For what it's worth, I knew USTR (I guess it isn't that obscure, but it's hardly common), but KEI had me stumped.
Anyone who tells you that their global or national perspective is "biased towards reality" is overestimating their own ability.
No one can be certain that their global or national perspectives are biased towards reality, because the information one builds those perspectives upon is delivered by people and factions with their own agendas and goals. The best anyone can do is weigh odds, based on a largely arbitrary scale.
If you aren't omniscient and capable of parallel processing on a massive scale, you can't be "biased towards reality".
A BAA spokesman said there was no record of the incident and no "formal complaint" had been made.
"If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it," he said.
"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category.
"If it's offensive, we don't want other passengers upset."
So, if it had been a realistic picture of a Beretta, or a rapper or a cowboy holding a pistol, everyone would have nodded at their "wise decision" and the incident wouldn't have even warranted an article? If it's a cartoon robot holding the gun, then it's a gray area and they need to think about it?
Where are the adults in Britain and what are they doing?
Half of people in prison are there for violent offenses. That half stays. The other half we need to take a good hard look at just why we're so gung ho remove people from their ability to make a living and pay to warehouse them.
It's wrong to equate "non-violent offenses" and "minor offenses". One person can wreck another's life, or the lives of several other people, without putting a scratch on them. Madoff's the poster boy for that right now, but it isn't limited to cases like his.
I think we should deal with the crowded jail problem at both ends... Fine or force service out of minor offenders as a substitute for prison, and kill more of the worst offenders.
So you watch porn on the Internet, and accept that humanity only exists because of "huge massive sex scenes" for eternal ages, but you got problems with sex in a movie?
Don't you see the problem in there?
Double standards at its best.
No, I don't see the problem there. I see that you're jumping to conclusions about the GP's reasons for wanting the sex scene cut down. You're acting like he complained about there being sex in the movie at all.
I don't care if tits get shown in an R-rated film, but I don't want to sit for several minutes watching people pretend to have sex, while listening to Leonard Cohen. That's what this one was, and it detracted from the point of the movie.
I disagree with your interpretation of Rorschach, as well as the GP's interpretation of Manhattan. Neither of them is emo. For what it's worth, Manhattan is closer to that than Rorschach.
Rorschach is decisive and gets annoyed at people who aren't. He doesn't whine about situations he gets into; he deals with them. He's the first character in the movie (second if you count O) to take initiative.
Manhattan is basically a god in the movie and doesn't care about much of anything, other than one woman. He has little reason to. He leaves Earth when people start to bother him too much. The girl has to force him into a decision, but that's mostly because he doesn't care if humans destroy themselves.
Ozymandias has "emo" traits (the guy built himself a giant tomb, expecting the others to kill him after he implemented his plans for the world), but still, he moved decisively in the direction of what he wanted instead of impotently whining about it.
"Emo" just seems to be the first insult people turn to when they don't like a character.
This is NOT FUCKING EUGENICS. Eugenics is a horrifically offensive behavior and this is NOT IT. Eugenics is when I tell you that dark skinned people cannot have babies with light skinned people. Eugenics is when the German government told people that Jews could not have children with non-Jews.
While this is not eugenics by the definition that you gave, as it does not involve controlled breeding, the definition implied by your two examples (which does not agree with the one you then give) is also wrong. Eugenics does not necessarily involve racial oppression.
I don't find the definition that you actually quoted, "the science of improving a breed or species through the careful selection of parents", to be offensive, though specific implementations of it can be.
Please don't use the word "eugenics" since the only accepted definition of the word references a truly abhorrent behavior that should never be approved of, which is what you have done through your ignorance of the word.
The definition that you gave is not the only accepted definition of the word. This is eugenics in the general sense. That is not a value judgment.
Another OS From which we have to choose from Why do we need this? Seriously, why hasn't BeOS (and OS/2 for that matter) just disappeared. As if the numerous Linux and BSD distros didn't make the market confusing enough. I'm constantly reminded of the scene in Caesar's Palace in Monty Python The Life of Brian. You know, where Brian tries to separate the People's Front of Judea and the Campaign to Free Galilee. When he says they need to unite against the common enemy they all shout "The Judean People's Front!" Then Brian has to say "No, no...the Romans!" That is what these OS wars are about. We need to unite against Microsoft, the dominant power. We already have several OS alternatives out there, Mac, Linux, BSD. Why throw another in the mix which will never be supported mainstream?
I'm pretty sure this is for hobbyists who remember BeOS, or geeks who are just curious. If you're talking about markets, competition, and "uniting against Microsoft", you've missed the point.
Also, people doing things for fun occasionally discover new techniques or ideas, so why not? I doubt anyone's putting aside a career to work on this, so what's lost?
It's ridiculous until one of your kids ends up with pics on the net that weren't authorized.
It's ridiculous regardless of that.
The issue isn't that people are taking pictures, the issue is that people don't ask and you don't know what they're taking pictures of.
Who said that it was?
The issue is that this law would be micromanagement to a laughable degree... almost as bad as requiring windows to make noise when someone looks through them. They're trying to require that technology enforce manners, and this is utterly useless in regards to safety. If passed, it will be an idiotic law that people and companies have to worry about violating (and spend money to make sure they're "compliant"), and that provides no benefit to society.
Luckily, I think this one is too ridiculous to go very far. As it is, it's only in committee.
Did someone use their phone to take a picture of a Congressman's daughter drunk at a college party?
McArthur and his cronies added it to the pledge of allegiance or whatever you call this thing you have to solemnly swear when you become a US Citizen. I believe they did that in 1956 if I'm not mistaken, this "One Nation under God" thing.
I think you mean (Joseph) McCarthy. McArthur was a general.
I don't think McCarthy had anything to do with the addition either, actually, besides voting on it like any other senator.
I have to wonder what a modern Christian would think when they read about their great loving God sending his angel of death to kill every innocent first-born child of Egypt just because some Pharaoh was a dickhead; or about God's chosen one, Moses, fucking his daughters; or about the rampant polygamy among God's chosen leaders (one man/one woman my ass!); or about the slaughter of entire tribes (men, women, and children) not only endorsed by, but actually ordered by, their "loving and compassionate" father-figure in heaven.
Wait, you think they don't know about this? Seriously, you think they'd be hearing about the 10th plague for the first time? It's even covered, bluntly, in children's books and cartoons. Ministers DO preach about the wholesale slaughter of rival tribes (well, outside of New England and California, anyway).
You're confusing Moses with Lot, who was drugged by his daughters (who believed they were the last people on earth).
Now, more interestingly:
Polygamy was banned for church leaders in the New Testament, but that was it. The more strict modern-day monogamy is mostly the result of Roman/European customs influencing Christianity in its early years. Even Augustine pretty much admitted that. You aren't the first to cite this strange contradiction; Hobbes did it centuries about.
Either God went through a pretty radical transformation at some point, or the God they're worshiping bears a much stronger resemblance to the modern conception of Satan than some loving, monogamy-supporting hippie.
A culture's vision of their God(s) changes depending on the needs of the culture at the time. That's pretty evident from looking at different writings in any religion.
Slashdot Mirror
No, people with 4.0 are more *conformist* than she is. More often than not they are more so resting on their laurels than actually hard workers.
I know many people who have had lesser GPAs that are off-the-charts brilliant, and just don't fit in to the churning of a degree program.
There's a difference between slacking off or working on unrelated projects and occasionally making B's when you could make A's, and screwing up consistently enough to get a 2.7. Did you jump to reply before reading the next sentence in my post?
She suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.
You had a 2.7 GPA, with a "bachelor of business administration degree in information technology", and a "solid attendance record".
Okay, Trina, you've probably never heard this before, but I'll be frank. Those people with 4.0 GPAs are all probably much smarter than you are. If you had, say, a 3.5 GPA (and perhaps a more serious degree), that might not be the case. It makes sense for people to give them preferential treatment when it comes to employment in jobs that require intelligence and skills specific to their fields.
Considering that you're so lacking in integrity and responsibility that you decided to sue the school because you couldn't find an employer, I'll go out on a limb and say that those people are --in all honesty-- better than you. Had you not responded with such a childish action, I might hesitate to say that. Alas, that is not the case.
If you're unhappy with this, too bad. You can try harder, but now that you've made an ass out of yourself on national news, I don't think you'll convince anyone otherwise.
Now, try not to go get pregnant a dozen times.
I don't see how the number of deliberate suicides via firearms "counters" the use of them for self-defense. In fact, I don't see what relevance it has at all, except to "emotionalize" the debate while making no point at all.
It's quick, it minimalizes the risk to others, there's a low rate of failure, no one has to go looking for the body, and the whole thing is in the hands of the person who wants to do it (ie, some subway or semi driver isn't being used as the tool). If someone's going to kill himself, I'd rather he use a gun than throw himself off a building or in front of a train.
A player was being irritating, which is within the rules.
The rest of the players turned him into an outcast, which is also within the rules.
I don't see the problem here.
You (and the authors of half the comments I've read so far...) must not have read the article. They went beyond attacking or taunting him in the game. Trying to expose someone's identity and falsely accusing them of being a sex offender is WAY outside the rules.
Also, "being irritating" in this case involved playing the game the way it was meant to be played. He wasn't doing things that were merely "technically" allowed. He wanted to roleplay as a hero, so he attacked villains.
The summary headline is inaccurate and inflammatory; its author needs to go back to Fark.
Not a bad idea. But watch out for those textbooks made in the 1860s. I heard that some of them will try to tell you that 2+2=goat.
I know you're joking, but the Ray's Mathematics books were actually pretty good. You may end up learning some antiquated systems of measurement, but that won't hurt anyone.
Are there any good, free resources for learning Algebra and up?
There are plenty of sites and free books online that will get you through calculus. For (elementary, not linear or abstract) algebra, a Google search should net you hundreds of sites. For higher subjects, http://www.theassayer.org/ should get you started.
As Hatta suggested, used bookstores and thrift stores are good for cheap high school-level textbooks. Don't count on finding anything higher than calculus texts, though. If you're looking for texts to study abstract algebra, set theory, game theory, et cetera, you may have to visit a university library to find physical books.
Dreaming up scenarios where my coding skills and knowledge of cutting-edge physics theories gets me women and fame is a really complex thought process. Takes a lot of brain power.
Can't you just play Half Life 2?
You strike me as the type of person who would become a doctor and then refuse to perform abortions because it was against your "morals".
You think that medical doctors should be obligated to perform them...? I think most doctors would refuse, even if you were able to get your view written into law.
Try leaving decisions about right and wrong up to the supreme court and do your damn job.
The Supreme Court's job isn't to make decisions about what's right and what's wrong. This is also irrelevant, as the poster that you're replying to didn't take a job that involved making weapons and then refuse to do it. He avoided that job in the first place.
I don't share his views (making weapons sounds like a great job to me), but your ranting doesn't make much sense.
It's absurd pedanticism. If Apple says "MacOS X is the easiest to use operating system in the world" do people respond with, no, the operating system that runs my car is easier to use? No they don't because that's obviously comparing apples to oranges. Trying to make a marketing dude look bad by comparing a production desktop OS like Windows to OpenVMS is just time wasting.
Well, Turner is comparing Vista to "open source", which isn't even an operating system. If we decide to be kind and limit the statement to "all open source OSes", he has still opened up quite a can of worms. In either case, that statement isn't limited to "production desktop OSes" (and we aren't talking about technicalities here). I will be very surprised if Vista SP2 stacks up against OpenBSD and hardened Linux.
Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.
That statement is very far-reaching, and Turner seems pretty confident about that. I'd say OpenVMS is a valid comparison, though a "tamer" one such as OpenBSD would be better. ;)
Of course, Turner is a businessman speaking to other businessmen, not a professor talking to other professors. I'm amused by the bragging, not angered at the inaccuracy.
agreed. I always have a similar opinion when reading every article I read. I disregard anything that could be false or manipulated, leaving me knowing as much as I did before I started reading the article.
What you finish the article knowing is one side's story, which is fine as long as you keep in mind that it's only one side's story. If it interests you, keep up with the story and keep investigating it.
While it is very well-written (which makes me inclined to believe him), Engle's post doesn't offer any evidence. It's a cry to rally defenders and donations, and that would make sense for him to do in either case. That's what the grandparent post was pointing out. From a look at the comments, scores of Diggers have already made up their minds and are charging off on their steeds as we speak.
That's just a small sample of the outright age, class, gender and race bigotry you get to experience in academic environments. ...
To the poster: remember that your academic advisors got where they are by being white, male, privileged-class blowhards -- and smarter than average, and specializing in "generating new knowledge" in some field.
...And that's another small sample, somewhat more extreme and less grounded in reality.
The GP said that it was very difficult for people over 30 to change. I think you overreacted more than a little.
I see lots of other places around the world where folks insist on segregating themselves by ethnicity and/or religion. They must hate my home, Silicon Valley.
Most of them don't care, as long as you leave them and the places where they live alone.
Do you hate them?
The worst lie is that "if someone made it, everyone can make it" -- pleeease. It's the lie of capitalism. Only one person can be the president or the leader of a software team. Would you tell it the guy who you are leading?
"Everyone can make it" doesn't mean that everyone can make it at the same time. It means that everyone can potentially make it (don't worry, the statement is still incorrect, though it was never meant to be taken literally).
Now, while your counterexample and reasoning are invalid, the statement you were trying to disprove is still incorrect. Many people could become the president, but not everyone, because some people lack (1) the ability, (2) the ability to fake having the ability, and (3) the ability to learn either the ability or the ability to fake having the ability. For these people, it is indeed impossible.
Calling it the lie of capitalism doesn't make any more sense than calling it the lie of socialism, or alcoholism.
Not if that editor enjoys being pretentious and deluded with the notion that using obscure, unexplained acronyms makes one intelligent and the reader shamefully ignorant.
Amusingly, they spelled out FOIA, which I bet almost every Slashdotter knows.
So, they actually used the full name for a common acronym, but not for the obscure ones.
For what it's worth, I knew USTR (I guess it isn't that obscure, but it's hardly common), but KEI had me stumped.
Anyone who tells you that their global or national perspective is "biased towards reality" is overestimating their own ability.
No one can be certain that their global or national perspectives are biased towards reality, because the information one builds those perspectives upon is delivered by people and factions with their own agendas and goals. The best anyone can do is weigh odds, based on a largely arbitrary scale.
If you aren't omniscient and capable of parallel processing on a massive scale, you can't be "biased towards reality".
A BAA spokesman said there was no record of the incident and no "formal complaint" had been made.
"If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it," he said.
"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category.
"If it's offensive, we don't want other passengers upset."
So, if it had been a realistic picture of a Beretta, or a rapper or a cowboy holding a pistol, everyone would have nodded at their "wise decision" and the incident wouldn't have even warranted an article? If it's a cartoon robot holding the gun, then it's a gray area and they need to think about it?
Where are the adults in Britain and what are they doing?
I've kind got social networking and micro-blogging figured out, but what the hell is lifestreaming?
Go to Google, type in "define:lifestream" or search for it, and things get even more confusing.
Did someone just make this term up and edit Wikipedia to reflect their intended definition?
Half of people in prison are there for violent offenses. That half stays. The other half we need to take a good hard look at just why we're so gung ho remove people from their ability to make a living and pay to warehouse them.
It's wrong to equate "non-violent offenses" and "minor offenses". One person can wreck another's life, or the lives of several other people, without putting a scratch on them. Madoff's the poster boy for that right now, but it isn't limited to cases like his.
I think we should deal with the crowded jail problem at both ends... Fine or force service out of minor offenders as a substitute for prison, and kill more of the worst offenders.
So you watch porn on the Internet, and accept that humanity only exists because of "huge massive sex scenes" for eternal ages,
but you got problems with sex in a movie?
Don't you see the problem in there?
Double standards at its best.
No, I don't see the problem there. I see that you're jumping to conclusions about the GP's reasons for wanting the sex scene cut down. You're acting like he complained about there being sex in the movie at all.
I don't care if tits get shown in an R-rated film, but I don't want to sit for several minutes watching people pretend to have sex, while listening to Leonard Cohen. That's what this one was, and it detracted from the point of the movie.
I disagree with your interpretation of Rorschach, as well as the GP's interpretation of Manhattan. Neither of them is emo. For what it's worth, Manhattan is closer to that than Rorschach.
Rorschach is decisive and gets annoyed at people who aren't. He doesn't whine about situations he gets into; he deals with them. He's the first character in the movie (second if you count O) to take initiative.
Manhattan is basically a god in the movie and doesn't care about much of anything, other than one woman. He has little reason to. He leaves Earth when people start to bother him too much. The girl has to force him into a decision, but that's mostly because he doesn't care if humans destroy themselves.
Ozymandias has "emo" traits (the guy built himself a giant tomb, expecting the others to kill him after he implemented his plans for the world), but still, he moved decisively in the direction of what he wanted instead of impotently whining about it.
"Emo" just seems to be the first insult people turn to when they don't like a character.
This is NOT FUCKING EUGENICS. Eugenics is a horrifically offensive behavior and this is NOT IT. Eugenics is when I tell you that dark skinned people cannot have babies with light skinned people. Eugenics is when the German government told people that Jews could not have children with non-Jews.
While this is not eugenics by the definition that you gave, as it does not involve controlled breeding, the definition implied by your two examples (which does not agree with the one you then give) is also wrong. Eugenics does not necessarily involve racial oppression.
I don't find the definition that you actually quoted, "the science of improving a breed or species through the careful selection of parents", to be offensive, though specific implementations of it can be.
Please don't use the word "eugenics" since the only accepted definition of the word references a truly abhorrent behavior that should never be approved of, which is what you have done through your ignorance of the word.
The definition that you gave is not the only accepted definition of the word. This is eugenics in the general sense. That is not a value judgment.
Another OS From which we have to choose from Why do we need this? Seriously, why hasn't BeOS (and OS/2 for that matter) just disappeared. As if the numerous Linux and BSD distros didn't make the market confusing enough. I'm constantly reminded of the scene in Caesar's Palace in Monty Python The Life of Brian. You know, where Brian tries to separate the People's Front of Judea and the Campaign to Free Galilee. When he says they need to unite against the common enemy they all shout "The Judean People's Front!" Then Brian has to say "No, no...the Romans!" That is what these OS wars are about. We need to unite against Microsoft, the dominant power. We already have several OS alternatives out there, Mac, Linux, BSD. Why throw another in the mix which will never be supported mainstream?
I'm pretty sure this is for hobbyists who remember BeOS, or geeks who are just curious. If you're talking about markets, competition, and "uniting against Microsoft", you've missed the point.
Also, people doing things for fun occasionally discover new techniques or ideas, so why not? I doubt anyone's putting aside a career to work on this, so what's lost?
It's ridiculous until one of your kids ends up with pics on the net that weren't authorized.
It's ridiculous regardless of that.
The issue isn't that people are taking pictures, the issue is that people don't ask and you don't know what they're taking pictures of.
Who said that it was?
The issue is that this law would be micromanagement to a laughable degree... almost as bad as requiring windows to make noise when someone looks through them. They're trying to require that technology enforce manners, and this is utterly useless in regards to safety. If passed, it will be an idiotic law that people and companies have to worry about violating (and spend money to make sure they're "compliant"), and that provides no benefit to society.
Luckily, I think this one is too ridiculous to go very far. As it is, it's only in committee.
Did someone use their phone to take a picture of a Congressman's daughter drunk at a college party?
McArthur and his cronies added it to the pledge of allegiance or whatever you call this thing you have to solemnly swear when you become a US Citizen. I believe they did that in 1956 if I'm not mistaken, this "One Nation under God" thing.
I think you mean (Joseph) McCarthy. McArthur was a general.
I don't think McCarthy had anything to do with the addition either, actually, besides voting on it like any other senator.
You're off-base in spots.
I have to wonder what a modern Christian would think when they read about their great loving God sending his angel of death to kill every innocent first-born child of Egypt just because some Pharaoh was a dickhead; or about God's chosen one, Moses, fucking his daughters; or about the rampant polygamy among God's chosen leaders (one man/one woman my ass!); or about the slaughter of entire tribes (men, women, and children) not only endorsed by, but actually ordered by, their "loving and compassionate" father-figure in heaven.
Wait, you think they don't know about this? Seriously, you think they'd be hearing about the 10th plague for the first time? It's even covered, bluntly, in children's books and cartoons. Ministers DO preach about the wholesale slaughter of rival tribes (well, outside of New England and California, anyway).
You're confusing Moses with Lot, who was drugged by his daughters (who believed they were the last people on earth).
Now, more interestingly:
Polygamy was banned for church leaders in the New Testament, but that was it. The more strict modern-day monogamy is mostly the result of Roman/European customs influencing Christianity in its early years. Even Augustine pretty much admitted that. You aren't the first to cite this strange contradiction; Hobbes did it centuries about.
Either God went through a pretty radical transformation at some point, or the God they're worshiping bears a much stronger resemblance to the modern conception of Satan than some loving, monogamy-supporting hippie.
A culture's vision of their God(s) changes depending on the needs of the culture at the time. That's pretty evident from looking at different writings in any religion.