If this is the reasoning behind the rest of your argument, it's meaningless.
MORE ALCOHOL = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact. MORE CARS = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact. MORE CHILDREN = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact. MORE BLACKS = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact.
Of course they do. The only country to embargo them is the United States. They can get all the computers they want from other countries. You are aware there are other countries out there, right?
You're kneejerking. The poster was probably talking about the Cuban government's ban on owning computers (with exceptions made for tourists, certain government workers, etc). It was actually lifted by Raul Castro a couple of weeks ago, but the average Cuban still probably doesn't have one.
They're not tackling the root cause of why they're having to do this. The fact is that an awful lot of kids in school in the US can get very easy access to weapons that allow them to kill people very easily. As long as the US at large is OK with accepting that kind of risk, and public anxiety quickly dies down after every shooting, then trying to half-heartedly try and film everything that people do is quite simply pointless.
Lack of surveillance is not the problem. Availability of weapons is not the problem. The fact that society drives intelligent people insane is the problem.
You could put a camera on every street corner and in every room in every public building, and you could destroy every firearm in the country. It wouldn't stop this. The sooner that everyone gets that through their skulls and starts trying to figure out what's driving these people nuts in the first place, the better.
I've noticed the same thing at any non-University library I've been in.
My hometown has what is considered a sizable and well-funded library for the size of the town it's in, but the computer-related books stop dead at 1997, and the only programming books are a couple of ancient ones dealing with BASIC.
It has little to do with the amount of cash the library has and a lot to do with what they think their visitors want. The history section here is _huge_, because the town has many people who are interested in local and national history. Even if I donated several of my more up-to-date and in-depth CS books, they would wind up in the discard pile in a year or less.
University libraries are well-stocked because the people running them care about completion; they want a thorough collection of each subject, even if some books go years between check-outs.
I can't be the only dude from the EU who has noticed a slow rise in anti-China stuff on slashdot?
Do other news sources in the US have this slant? Because looking at it from the outside, it's like the US^H^H^H^H Fox News is seeking a new bogeyman now the cold war is over. Unfortunately some of this is rubbing off on a more intellegent news source like/.K
You seriously haven't noticed the many voices that have been screaming "Forget the Middle East, China's what we need to worry about!" for the past fifteen years? If the first time you heard about this was recently on Fox News, you must not read anything else from the US.
As far as the "slow rise" in anti-China stuff on Slashdot, you can look to the not-so-slow rise of Internet-based attacks on the US from China and the espionage that's been going on for decades.
aristocracy: it's the myth that some people are more competent than others. one class of people supposedly taken to be more trustworthy, intelligent, or more worthy to judge than the common man on the street. this is frankly an anti-democratic impulse. this swedish system of yours seems to be an anachronism form the time when the usa split form europe because of failed attitudes jsut like the swedish system of "justice" you describe
if you find yourself with antidemocratic instincts like the poster above, putting his faith in a system based on perceived superiority of a class of people over another, take a deep breath, step back, and fix yourself. you are broken in a dangerous, authoritarian, fascist way
From some parts of your post, it looks like you are also broken, though in a different way. For a democracy or republic to work, every person has to have an interest in the well-being of the nation and at least a basic understanding of how things work. A democracy that consists of one block who cares about little as long as they have entertainment, one block who cares about little as long as they can follow their religion, and one block who only cares about technological advancement will destroy itself.
It's no "myth" that some people are more competent than others. In fact, some people are so incompetent that they have no business taking part in a decision that can affect the lives of others. This can be due to a genetic deficiency, to an injury or disease, to ignorance, or to simple apathy on the part of the individual. You can talk all you want about "perceived intelligence", but the retarded man who stumbles around barking at the neighborhood dogs is still retarded. The apathetic idiot who wants to watch ESPN all day still doesn't care.
but the end results of aristocracy and classism is all the same: the french revolution
Pick the book back up and keep reading. No revolution gives power to the people like you seem to think; they put new aristocracies in place, which can be good or bad.
I wonder how the person who wrote that title feels about Microsoft?
Next up: "Microsoft cruising seedy bars on the hunt for fresh start-up action."
The word "trolling" means fishing by pulling lures through the water, which isn't a bad analogy. It didn't come into existence after the birth of Usenet.
"Microsoft Fishing for New Acquisitions" doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Well, if you RTFA, one could infer that referring to the garage as the Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage could be construed as threatening to university president Zaccari. It's wasn't just the Project Spotlight link.
You were moderated funny, but that is exactly what the University considered a threat. At least one otherwise intelligent professor even told his class, in all seriousness, that that is what Barnes meant by it, and most of his students agreed.
What about the rest of the students who weren't expelled and are being educated by these idiots? That's the real story.
Most of the instructors at VSU are fine (at least in the Department of Math and Computer Science); this was just a very stupid and probably illegal action by the administration.
I don't really care about the minimal environmental effect of the new garages, I'm angry because they decided to wipe out BOTH of the main parking lots AT THE SAME TIME to build them, turning what would have been a problem into an absolute clusterfuck. Students are parking illegally wherever they can, including the spots reserved for patrolmen in front of the police station.
The plan is for students to park at the Valdosta Mall (six or seven blocks away) and take buses, bikes, or walk to the campus. This has been about as effective as the helicopter in that famous image of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the country after the war, as there are only two or three (short) buses making the route at a time, and no bike lanes.
Yeah, they'll live (except for the ones who actually try to walk or ride bikes between the mall and the Uni in the morning traffic), but that doesn't mean that this isn't stupid. The University is growing, the city is growing, and the people in charge need to smarten up soon.
Europe's like what...the size of Texas? If we had that many folks living in such a small area, then different types of coverage wouldn't be an issue. But for that vast amounts of rural area the US has, CDMA makes providing service that much easier. Even where I live, wedged between two metro areas 50 miles in each direction, CDMA is much more reliable than any of the other protocols. Your comment displays your ignorance of America (much like most American's ignorance of Europe is so frequently pointed out.) The country is freaking HUGE.
Spain is about the size of Texas. Europe is a bit bigger than US...4 million square miles versus 3.5-3.7 million.
Your point that the large rural areas in the US affect telcommunications there is valid, but your first comment was nuts.
Here in Georgia, they have been running ads and propaganda about how drinking under 21 is harmful and illegal, including parent's hosting of "drinking parties" for their underage kids.
Did you ever see the "If you're caught drinking underage, we'll do more than call your momma" billboard with a picture of handcuffs?
Protect the kids from the "evils of alcohol" by putting them behind bars with criminals? Evidently, quite a few people in Atlanta think that it'll work.
This is the type of thing I like to see young people doing for fun.
I'd love to replace all the obscene graffiti painted or carved around the University campus with lighthearted cultural references drawn in chalk.
It may not be the most productive thing for them to do, but it has more benefits than a lot of things people waste time on (eg, porn, WoW). A group of friends enjoyed making it, and plenty of people will probably enjoy looking at it.
Next time you're in a public restroom and there's a crudely drawn penis on the wall, erase it and draw a Mudkip. The world will be a (slightly) better place.
The parent post should not have been moderated "troll", and no, it wasn't flamebait either.
How many whites have been President Of China or Emperor of Japan? How many have even tried to run?
Could it be that most people want to elect someone who represents someone that resembles themselves? Chinese people do not resemble the White majority.
These are both valid points. People vote for someone who they believe will respect their beliefs; this means that they are more likely to vote for someone of their own race, religion, system of ethics, etc.
How come White people do not have much in the way of political power in non-white countries? Riddle me that!
Someone has already brought up the Belgian Congo, South African apartheid, etc in another response. These are dated examples, and I don't know of any that are more recent.
From the GP:
Black and hispanic people are treated poorly, and as such a lot of them (although I hope its lessening as the government and society works to righting past wrongs) are in the lower classes.
Can anyone supply a recent example of Blacks and Hispanics being mistreated in the US that 1. isn't an isolated incident involving a handful of people (or less), 2. doesn't involve illegal immigrants, and 3. doesn't apply to Whites as well?
A culture of machismo where the first thing Spanish explorers did when they reached the New World was rape women and steal?
Like the Aztecs did to the other tribes, but without the human sacrifice?
A nation that tries to deal with its social problems completely before tackling expansion and technological progress will be destroyed by the nations that don't.
This is one of the many reasons I don't like sensationally-worded headlines.
Congress did not "ban humans on Mars". They stopped NASA's funding for a human mission to Mars and told it to concentrate on other things. Other nations, or private citizens of the US if I understand correctly, are free to shoot for it.
At least three of the hijackers were here illegally, not because of the way they entered but because they didn't leave or renew their visas when they were supposed to.
The GP post didn't say anything about Mexicans; he just pointed out that this plan would be ineffective against someone who entered the country illegally. Being Mexican isn't a requirement for that, though it seems to help.
I thought RMS was not a fan of the Creative Commons license.
That depends on which one you're talking about. My understanding is that some of the CC licenses aren't compatible with what he wants, but others are fine.
Come come now. There's nothing worse than someone who wishes to be taken seriously, but uses childish name calling in the same argument. "M$"? If your facts are good, as they seem to be, there's not need to resort to such things.
Well, there are the people who make a stink every time someone says "M$" or "Micro$oft". This is Slashdot's comment section, not a press conference; don't expect people to refrain from mocking companies they don't like.
Alright I will. In the US, you outlaw chemical formulae, but allow people to call for "infidels" to be burned at the stake. Do you regard this as a laudable state of affairs?
Good job cutting off the rest of the quote, which changes the meaning of the sentence: "We have outlawed bomb-making instructions since 1997 (Thanks, Diane Feinstein!), but only those with that give instructions for the purposes of violating federal law." Even the butchered quote wouldn't have banned chemical formulae, by the way.
Terroristic threats are illegal. "Hate speech" isn't. You can deny the Holocaust or question the "six million figure", for example. Considering that "hate speech" in parts of Europe includes criticizing the wrong religious group (yes, specific groups are given extra legal protection), I prefer it this way.
The "it's their equipment" argument is irrelevant. A person's freedom to do what he wants with his property doesn't make him immune to laws dealing with contracts, advertising, etc. If an ISP has a contract with a customer to provide a service, they have to provide it.
Who knows what other rulings against property will come of it - or how courts may use this precedent to justify taking others property for some kind of "common good".
It's like saying everybody must fly coach, and nobody should be able to offer first-class or business-class seating.
I have more money, and less time than most people to have to deal with the unwashed masses. I should have the option of paying for better QOS if I feel like it.
No. Different tiers of internet service are like having a first-class and business-class seating section. You pay for X downstream and Y upstream.
Net neutrality is like saying that the airline can't sell you a first-class ticket, and then bump you down to coach unless you win a bidding war with another guy in first-class after you're on the airplane.
They certainly have some big names on the list. I hope that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and they're more effective at getting politicians to listen than they were when standing apart.
SMB2 wasn't even a Mario game originally, and the parent poster said "most Mario games" in any case -- in most Mario games, the princess is strictly a damsel in distress and is totally powerless. But hey, don't let that stop your karma-whoring.
Princesses that are kidnapped by large reptilian or semi-reptilian creatures are, by definition, damsels-in-distress. They are political leaders (sometimes just political figureheads), and as such their education has been concentrated on law, diplomacy, proper form, and so on, not martial arts.
In an action game where you're supposed to save the President, he's going to be in the same situation. The same goes for scientists, unless they have a biohazard suit or a giant robot.
Slashdot Mirror
If this is the reasoning behind the rest of your argument, it's meaningless.
MORE ALCOHOL = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact.
MORE CARS = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact.
MORE CHILDREN = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact.
MORE BLACKS = MORE DEATHS, it's a matter of a fact.
You're kneejerking. The poster was probably talking about the Cuban government's ban on owning computers (with exceptions made for tourists, certain government workers, etc). It was actually lifted by Raul Castro a couple of weeks ago, but the average Cuban still probably doesn't have one.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080313/tc_nm/cuba_reforms_dc_1
Lack of surveillance is not the problem.
Availability of weapons is not the problem.
The fact that society drives intelligent people insane is the problem.
You could put a camera on every street corner and in every room in every public building, and you could destroy every firearm in the country. It wouldn't stop this. The sooner that everyone gets that through their skulls and starts trying to figure out what's driving these people nuts in the first place, the better.
I've noticed the same thing at any non-University library I've been in.
My hometown has what is considered a sizable and well-funded library for the size of the town it's in, but the computer-related books stop dead at 1997, and the only programming books are a couple of ancient ones dealing with BASIC.
It has little to do with the amount of cash the library has and a lot to do with what they think their visitors want. The history section here is _huge_, because the town has many people who are interested in local and national history. Even if I donated several of my more up-to-date and in-depth CS books, they would wind up in the discard pile in a year or less.
University libraries are well-stocked because the people running them care about completion; they want a thorough collection of each subject, even if some books go years between check-outs.
You seriously haven't noticed the many voices that have been screaming "Forget the Middle East, China's what we need to worry about!" for the past fifteen years? If the first time you heard about this was recently on Fox News, you must not read anything else from the US.
As far as the "slow rise" in anti-China stuff on Slashdot, you can look to the not-so-slow rise of Internet-based attacks on the US from China and the espionage that's been going on for decades.
From some parts of your post, it looks like you are also broken, though in a different way. For a democracy or republic to work, every person has to have an interest in the well-being of the nation and at least a basic understanding of how things work. A democracy that consists of one block who cares about little as long as they have entertainment, one block who cares about little as long as they can follow their religion, and one block who only cares about technological advancement will destroy itself.
It's no "myth" that some people are more competent than others. In fact, some people are so incompetent that they have no business taking part in a decision that can affect the lives of others. This can be due to a genetic deficiency, to an injury or disease, to ignorance, or to simple apathy on the part of the individual. You can talk all you want about "perceived intelligence", but the retarded man who stumbles around barking at the neighborhood dogs is still retarded. The apathetic idiot who wants to watch ESPN all day still doesn't care.
Pick the book back up and keep reading. No revolution gives power to the people like you seem to think; they put new aristocracies in place, which can be good or bad.
The word "trolling" means fishing by pulling lures through the water, which isn't a bad analogy. It didn't come into existence after the birth of Usenet.
"Microsoft Fishing for New Acquisitions" doesn't sound so bad, does it?
You were moderated funny, but that is exactly what the University considered a threat. At least one otherwise intelligent professor even told his class, in all seriousness, that that is what Barnes meant by it, and most of his students agreed.
Most of the instructors at VSU are fine (at least in the Department of Math and Computer Science); this was just a very stupid and probably illegal action by the administration.
I don't really care about the minimal environmental effect of the new garages, I'm angry because they decided to wipe out BOTH of the main parking lots AT THE SAME TIME to build them, turning what would have been a problem into an absolute clusterfuck. Students are parking illegally wherever they can, including the spots reserved for patrolmen in front of the police station.
The plan is for students to park at the Valdosta Mall (six or seven blocks away) and take buses, bikes, or walk to the campus. This has been about as effective as the helicopter in that famous image of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the country after the war, as there are only two or three (short) buses making the route at a time, and no bike lanes.
Yeah, they'll live (except for the ones who actually try to walk or ride bikes between the mall and the Uni in the morning traffic), but that doesn't mean that this isn't stupid. The University is growing, the city is growing, and the people in charge need to smarten up soon.
Spain is about the size of Texas. Europe is a bit bigger than US...4 million square miles versus 3.5-3.7 million.
Your point that the large rural areas in the US affect telcommunications there is valid, but your first comment was nuts.
Did you ever see the "If you're caught drinking underage, we'll do more than call your momma" billboard with a picture of handcuffs?
Protect the kids from the "evils of alcohol" by putting them behind bars with criminals? Evidently, quite a few people in Atlanta think that it'll work.
This is the type of thing I like to see young people doing for fun.
I'd love to replace all the obscene graffiti painted or carved around the University campus with lighthearted cultural references drawn in chalk.
It may not be the most productive thing for them to do, but it has more benefits than a lot of things people waste time on (eg, porn, WoW). A group of friends enjoyed making it, and plenty of people will probably enjoy looking at it.
Next time you're in a public restroom and there's a crudely drawn penis on the wall, erase it and draw a Mudkip. The world will be a (slightly) better place.
These are both valid points. People vote for someone who they believe will respect their beliefs; this means that they are more likely to vote for someone of their own race, religion, system of ethics, etc.
Someone has already brought up the Belgian Congo, South African apartheid, etc in another response. These are dated examples, and I don't know of any that are more recent.
From the GP:
Can anyone supply a recent example of Blacks and Hispanics being mistreated in the US that 1. isn't an isolated incident involving a handful of people (or less), 2. doesn't involve illegal immigrants, and 3. doesn't apply to Whites as well?
I have an even better suggestion: Find a woman and impress her.
Like the Aztecs did to the other tribes, but without the human sacrifice?
A nation that tries to deal with its social problems completely before tackling expansion and technological progress will be destroyed by the nations that don't.
This is one of the many reasons I don't like sensationally-worded headlines.
Congress did not "ban humans on Mars". They stopped NASA's funding for a human mission to Mars and told it to concentrate on other things. Other nations, or private citizens of the US if I understand correctly, are free to shoot for it.
At least three of the hijackers were here illegally, not because of the way they entered but because they didn't leave or renew their visas when they were supposed to.
The GP post didn't say anything about Mexicans; he just pointed out that this plan would be ineffective against someone who entered the country illegally. Being Mexican isn't a requirement for that, though it seems to help.
That depends on which one you're talking about. My understanding is that some of the CC licenses aren't compatible with what he wants, but others are fine.
Well, there are the people who make a stink every time someone says "M$" or "Micro$oft". This is Slashdot's comment section, not a press conference; don't expect people to refrain from mocking companies they don't like.
"Hey guys, some rioters are in a firefight with the cops and ATF in Atlanta. Go level the city."
Good job cutting off the rest of the quote, which changes the meaning of the sentence: "We have outlawed bomb-making instructions since 1997 (Thanks, Diane Feinstein!), but only those with that give instructions for the purposes of violating federal law." Even the butchered quote wouldn't have banned chemical formulae, by the way.
Terroristic threats are illegal. "Hate speech" isn't. You can deny the Holocaust or question the "six million figure", for example. Considering that "hate speech" in parts of Europe includes criticizing the wrong religious group (yes, specific groups are given extra legal protection), I prefer it this way.
No. Different tiers of internet service are like having a first-class and business-class seating section. You pay for X downstream and Y upstream.
Net neutrality is like saying that the airline can't sell you a first-class ticket, and then bump you down to coach unless you win a bidding war with another guy in first-class after you're on the airplane.
They certainly have some big names on the list. I hope that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and they're more effective at getting politicians to listen than they were when standing apart.
Princesses that are kidnapped by large reptilian or semi-reptilian creatures are, by definition, damsels-in-distress. They are political leaders (sometimes just political figureheads), and as such their education has been concentrated on law, diplomacy, proper form, and so on, not martial arts.
In an action game where you're supposed to save the President, he's going to be in the same situation. The same goes for scientists, unless they have a biohazard suit or a giant robot.