Holy shit! You're right! If they take away my rusty shotgun and rustier rifle, then I'm just shit outta luck trying to defend my family from tanks and drones with a slingshot and softball bat.
Kinda funny they way gun control supporters paint this: If its about resisting tyranny, then our guns are "rusty" pieces of crap barely more capable then a BB gun (and of course if used in self defense the attacker will just swat away your puny gun and use it against you).
When they argue to take them away though, then they're "weapons of war" that don't belong on our streets for fear of the mass destruction they're capable of.
So basically, they're so weak and ineffectual that you shouldn't care if they're taken away, but they need to be taken away because of how dangerous they are:S.
It seems pointless to send humans to do something a machine can do better.
Cheaper, but far from better. We've learned a lot from the Mars rovers for example, but in all the years they've been driving around up there, a geologist on-site could have learned more about the planet in a weekend of study there.
The FARTHEST exoplanetary system we've discovered is around the star NY Virginis which is 26,940 light years away. The majority are much closer than that. The likelihood that any planet that we can see just "doesn't exist" 27,000 years (or less) later is minuscule. That span of time is nothing when it comes to the lifespan of a planet.
Err..light year is a measure of distance but the light we see from something 1000 light years away... is literally 1000 years old by the time it reaches us.
Err, in astronomical terms a few thousand years is a blip. Would you go around correcting people at work every time they mention "home" to mention: "You don't know if there's is a home. For all you know it could have already burned down before you get back.".
No - it's stupid. Any planet observable with these techniques is close enough that there's such a small chance of it being destroyed by now that its not even worth worrying about.
Slashdot is news for nerds. Nerds care about just about anything remotely tech or science related as well as any major news story like this even if not tech related.
Its actually not much different than a normal news site except for most of the "celebrity" gossip and reality TV crap is filtered out - unless it has some technology tie-in.
Hardware accelerated video still looks better no matter how fast the system you're using. I use an Nvidia card but unless VDPAU (hardware accelerated decoding) is enabled the video has screen tearing present that makes it look terrible - even on a 2.5Ghz AMD quad-core system. Its not that the system can't keep up - it'll decode the stream in real-time just fine if I want to play it. Its just that the video looks like crap.
What is the purpose of owning them? Why are you shooting them? It's not because you really love to put holes in pieces of paper from 50 feet away.
You'd be surprised how addicting putting holes in paper is (well, often I use steel targets too which just fall over or you get an audible ring on a hit).
Its like any other sport. Throwing a ball through a hoop over and over serves no practical purpose but look how many people are tuning into March Madness.
I actually compete in three different shooting disciplines - USPSA, GSSF, and Steel Challenge. USPSA in particular is often mocked by shooting sports that DO practice "defensive" techniques specifically because many of the guns and strategies used in the sport are particularly unsuited to use in "real life" situations.
Do you honestly think this gun is optimal for any tactical, defense, or any other use against people?
Indeed. I own several dozen guns - almost all of which I shoot regularly and none of which have ever killed someone.
As a matter of fact, if a gun is "meant" for killing people, considering that there are approximately 200 million guns in the US and 11,000 gun deaths per year in the US, then even if you consider every single one of those deaths to have been caused by a different firearm (which isn't true, but that's a "worse case scenario"), then every year 99.9945% of those guns are used for something other than what they're "meant" for since they didn't kill anyone.
Trying arrest the makers of a legal product because it was misused is idiotic. You might as well arrest execs at Dell if someone uses one of their computers in a hacking scandal.
I think the desktop on Linux is truly approaching it's demise.
Actually I think the desktop's only future is on Linux.
Most of the regular users are moving on to tablets and phones. Even in businesses I'm starting to see people migrate to just a tablet. There's still plenty of desktop users but at the rate we're going desktop computers will be a thing of the past within the decade.
I'd wager that geeks and Linux types will be the only ones who still want a desktop OS and system by 2020. We'll probably be running on off the wall hobbyist hardware (Raspberry Pi type devices) and hooking up to mostly HD televisions as monitors if purpose built monitors aren't still available.
I'm not complaining - I'll be keeping mine too as even as a technophile I still prefer to sit down to a full system rather than use a tablet, but I truly think that there will eventually be a "year of Linux on the desktop" - it'll just be after most of the world has forgotten about the desktop.
The trouble with atheists though is that people only register the vocal ones as actually BEING atheist. The ones who are quiet about it people just assume are a member of the "default" religion.
Its kinda like this "march madness" stuff that's sprung up lately. I don't watch basketball. I don't like it. I generally have no need to tell people that though and don't go around railing against it. However, in the last few weeks I've had to tell quite a few people that I don't watch basketball simply because they keep coming up to me at work and talking about it. Letting them know that you have no interest in the topic isn't a way to feel superior, but rather can just be a person trying to escape being dragged into conversations that they don't wish to participate in.
The combo of large/heavy likely is UPS/Fedex friendly, but I still find USPS to be better for small and heavy packages via their flat-rate boxes. As a hobby I do a lot of competitive pistol shooting and like to hand-load my own ammo. I save my cases, and powder/primers I buy locally, but the actual bullets/projectiles I generally mail order.
Given that its just tightly packed bullets a lot of those packages are essentially just a big package of lead. Doesn't take up much space, but its really heavy.
Being able to ship 50lbs worth of material for $13 is a great help.
Letters, under a certain dimensional limit, are single-rate, but parcel delivery is billed by size and distance.
Well yes, but its also cheaper than UPS or Fedex, generally faster (Priority mail barely costs anything more than First class and only takes three days) AND has Saturday delivery (which will still be operational for packages even after Saturday letter delivery stops later this year).
Combine that with their flat-rate boxes (UPS/Fedex always take weight into consideration) and USPS is pretty much awesome in my book. The only negative thing I've ever noticed is that their tracking info isn't as detailed, but it's plenty good enough for my needs.
New York is already backpedaling on the 7 round limit (stating that the virtual non-existence of 7-round magazines is a problem). Its likely to be thrown out on constitutional challenge.
The Heller decision has already stated that a locality cannot outlaw a class of firearm "in common use". The reality is that 10 rounds is note even remotely "high capacity". Unless they're really small for concealability or fire particularly large ammo, standard handgun magazine capacity runs from 15 to 18 rounds. Based on the common use language in Heller its going to be hard to argue against any mag limit lower than 18.
And magazines to be limited in the number of rounds that they can hold to a sane number. If you require more than 10 rounds in a magazine in order to get one of them to hit the target, you have absolutely no business operating a firearm.
If nobody "with any business operating a firearm" needs more than 10 rounds - why do virtually all police and military carry more than 10 rounds in their guns?
The police are of particular note. They are not soldiers - they are not engaged in war. They simply are prepared for a defensive situation that might pop up on the everyday environment (for any offensive situation that they plan on SWAT would be called in with even higher capacity guns).
These are the exact situations faced by any other civilian in society, yet we're told a 10 round magazine is plenty, while most cops are armed with Glock 22's with a 15-round magazine capacity and always carry at least 2 reloads on the belt (45 rounds in total).
Actually, yes I have no problem with that. When it comes to being easy a bomb is about the most dirt simple thing to produce. A gun is a contained explosion where you use the gases to perform a function. IE, the gas pushes the bullet down the barrel and in semi- or fully-automatic firearms works the action. A bomb is just the explosion without the contained part.
Lots of farmers buy huge quantities of ammonium nitrate, and there's no shortage of substitute materials out there if someone wants to build one.
Also, in case you're not aware - making explosives isn't even 100% illegal. Transporting them is, but for example a lot of people use an explosive called tannerite to build exploding targets. A high speed shock (ie, rifle bullet) will set of a pretty nice explosion, and its perfectly legal in most states so long as you use it where you mix it and don't leave the shooting range with it.
a) Hunting deer is legal in quite a few states with 5.56. It certainly is here in SC. While I personally would go larger, I certainly wouldn't go "at least.308"..308 is overkill. My favorite deer rifle is a custom built bolt action in.257 Roberts which is MUCH less powerful than a.308 but works fine for deer.
b) The AR-15 is most commonly chambered in 5.56 NATO, but thats not universally the case. Its available in a whole lot of other configurations. In particular the.300 AAC Blackout round (5.56 case necked up to accept a.308" bullet) has become popular and many AR-15's have been coming in that lately since it uses all the same parts and magazines as 5.56 (the barrel is the only thing different). This round is most certainly suitable for hunting.
The reality is that "hunting" rifles for a long time have followed the same developments as military rifles. For the first 50 years of the 20th century bolt action "hunting" rilfes were all the rage because that's what the military had been using and there were a ton of them available on the surplus market. Time has progressed, and so has technology. The AR-15 is becoming far more popular in all aspects of shooting, including hunting. I personally will be building one of the aforementioned models in.300 AAC Blackout to do my hunting with as soon as the prices on the components calm down (gun prices have gone through the roof in the last few months).
The sporting purposes clause only applies to the import of a firearm (handguns similarly have a point system in place where features must be present to import them - which is why Glock when it was importing from Austria had to add adjustable sights to their guns that they then swapped back to fixed sights when they got here - stupid bureaucracy).
Anyways, long story short, the "sporting purposes" clause doesn't apply to any domestically manufactured firearm.
The receiver is still the gun on a bolt action. The action as a unit includes the bolt, bolt stop, triggerguard, magazine components, etc, and none of those are regulated. Just the actual receiver, which is exactly the same situation as a semi-auto. The only potential confusion is that AR's have two receivers - an upper and a lower receiver. Only one part in a gun ends up being regulated and for whatever reason they chose to serial # and restrict the lower. The upper receiver could have just as easily been the regulated part.
The slope has already gotten slippery. A printed gun by itself doesn't hurt anyone. It only has the POTENTIAL to be used in such a way that someone can be injured or killed.
If you want to stop the iterative process that you feel unnecessary, then we go to the core issue: its against the law to kill someone. If that's against the law most people won't do it. The people who still will won't have any issue breaking any chain of laws that lead up to that issue, so there's no sense in creating that chain of laws until we get to the actual problem, which is a murder.
I think that's the main point. Guns have been around for the better part of a millenia now. The basic principle of modern semi-automatic cartridge-fed firearms has been around for over 100 years. The reality is that people have been making these things with the most basic of tools LONG before modern 3d-printers and CNC machines were invented.
At its heart a gun is a pretty simple device. Those "high capacity magazines" that they keep whining about are a couple pieces of folded metal and a spring (alternatively, a printed plastic tube and a spring). Regulation of such things was always futile, and the better home manufacturing tools get (for all things) the harder it will become.
Eventually you have to accept the stark reality that people cannot be controlled. If they do something bad they can be punished, but that goal of controlling the populace to keep them from doing something in the first place is just a pipe dream.
The basis of the Nielsen system was that a representative group would convey the viewing habits of all customers.
What they're saying is that the Pirate Bay downloads are a good measure of what's popular - among both downloaders and paying customers.
Also, don't forget that there is overlap between the two groups. I download virtually every episode of Game of Thrones from TPB. I also maintain an HBO subscription. The reasoning is simple - I like to watch the show when it broadcasts but I also will rewatch the show a few times later as well. Beyond the first watching I want to watch at my own convenience without putting up with the aggravation that is HBO Go, so I go download the show there as well.
Similarly, I also have AMC and watch the first broadcast of The Walking Dead live, but then always download it so I can watch it a few more times.
To a large degree TPB operates in place of me having a DVR.
Actually a lot of people pay for Google these days. My work account and my ISP account are both by Google and are advertisement free.
Also - plenty of people listen to podcasts, which are mostly compiled via RSS. As a matter of fact that was my primary use of Google Reader - I used it to listen to podcasts and whatever computer I happened to be sitting down to without having to worry about syncing anything. All the ones I listed to were in the list and ready to go.
Actually seems like it could be a semi-legitimate complaint to me. Realistically what applications are there for a high-precision GPS outside of geological/territorial surveys and military intelligence?
Is it just me or is it getting really scary that people are starting to think this way?
Be it GPS, guns, encryption, or 64oz sodas, there seems to be a growing and vocal faction of people that think that if someone can show some defined "need" to have something then they shouldn't be able to have it.
The presence of tools should NEVER be interpreted as intention to commit a crime.
Slashdot Mirror
Holy shit! You're right! If they take away my rusty shotgun and rustier rifle, then I'm just shit outta luck trying to defend my family from tanks and drones with a slingshot and softball bat.
Kinda funny they way gun control supporters paint this: If its about resisting tyranny, then our guns are "rusty" pieces of crap barely more capable then a BB gun (and of course if used in self defense the attacker will just swat away your puny gun and use it against you).
When they argue to take them away though, then they're "weapons of war" that don't belong on our streets for fear of the mass destruction they're capable of.
So basically, they're so weak and ineffectual that you shouldn't care if they're taken away, but they need to be taken away because of how dangerous they are :S.
It seems pointless to send humans to do something a machine can do better.
Cheaper, but far from better. We've learned a lot from the Mars rovers for example, but in all the years they've been driving around up there, a geologist on-site could have learned more about the planet in a weekend of study there.
The FARTHEST exoplanetary system we've discovered is around the star NY Virginis which is 26,940 light years away. The majority are much closer than that. The likelihood that any planet that we can see just "doesn't exist" 27,000 years (or less) later is minuscule. That span of time is nothing when it comes to the lifespan of a planet.
Err..light year is a measure of distance but the light we see from something 1000 light years away ... is literally 1000 years old by the time it reaches us.
Err, in astronomical terms a few thousand years is a blip. Would you go around correcting people at work every time they mention "home" to mention: "You don't know if there's is a home. For all you know it could have already burned down before you get back.".
No - it's stupid. Any planet observable with these techniques is close enough that there's such a small chance of it being destroyed by now that its not even worth worrying about.
It's "stuff that matters".
Slashdot is news for nerds. Nerds care about just about anything remotely tech or science related as well as any major news story like this even if not tech related.
Its actually not much different than a normal news site except for most of the "celebrity" gossip and reality TV crap is filtered out - unless it has some technology tie-in.
Hardware accelerated video still looks better no matter how fast the system you're using. I use an Nvidia card but unless VDPAU (hardware accelerated decoding) is enabled the video has screen tearing present that makes it look terrible - even on a 2.5Ghz AMD quad-core system. Its not that the system can't keep up - it'll decode the stream in real-time just fine if I want to play it. Its just that the video looks like crap.
What is the purpose of owning them? Why are you shooting them? It's not because you really love to put holes in pieces of paper from 50 feet away.
You'd be surprised how addicting putting holes in paper is (well, often I use steel targets too which just fall over or you get an audible ring on a hit).
Its like any other sport. Throwing a ball through a hoop over and over serves no practical purpose but look how many people are tuning into March Madness.
I actually compete in three different shooting disciplines - USPSA, GSSF, and Steel Challenge. USPSA in particular is often mocked by shooting sports that DO practice "defensive" techniques specifically because many of the guns and strategies used in the sport are particularly unsuited to use in "real life" situations.
Do you honestly think this gun is optimal for any tactical, defense, or any other use against people?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ejmk8gZ5XDc/UVsYAaP89ZI/AAAAAAAABHI/t0CQHxhkxVw/s800/limcat38super.jpg
Indeed. I own several dozen guns - almost all of which I shoot regularly and none of which have ever killed someone.
As a matter of fact, if a gun is "meant" for killing people, considering that there are approximately 200 million guns in the US and 11,000 gun deaths per year in the US, then even if you consider every single one of those deaths to have been caused by a different firearm (which isn't true, but that's a "worse case scenario"), then every year 99.9945% of those guns are used for something other than what they're "meant" for since they didn't kill anyone.
Trying arrest the makers of a legal product because it was misused is idiotic. You might as well arrest execs at Dell if someone uses one of their computers in a hacking scandal.
I think the desktop on Linux is truly approaching it's demise.
Actually I think the desktop's only future is on Linux.
Most of the regular users are moving on to tablets and phones. Even in businesses I'm starting to see people migrate to just a tablet. There's still plenty of desktop users but at the rate we're going desktop computers will be a thing of the past within the decade.
I'd wager that geeks and Linux types will be the only ones who still want a desktop OS and system by 2020. We'll probably be running on off the wall hobbyist hardware (Raspberry Pi type devices) and hooking up to mostly HD televisions as monitors if purpose built monitors aren't still available.
I'm not complaining - I'll be keeping mine too as even as a technophile I still prefer to sit down to a full system rather than use a tablet, but I truly think that there will eventually be a "year of Linux on the desktop" - it'll just be after most of the world has forgotten about the desktop.
The trouble with atheists though is that people only register the vocal ones as actually BEING atheist. The ones who are quiet about it people just assume are a member of the "default" religion.
Its kinda like this "march madness" stuff that's sprung up lately. I don't watch basketball. I don't like it. I generally have no need to tell people that though and don't go around railing against it. However, in the last few weeks I've had to tell quite a few people that I don't watch basketball simply because they keep coming up to me at work and talking about it. Letting them know that you have no interest in the topic isn't a way to feel superior, but rather can just be a person trying to escape being dragged into conversations that they don't wish to participate in.
The combo of large/heavy likely is UPS/Fedex friendly, but I still find USPS to be better for small and heavy packages via their flat-rate boxes. As a hobby I do a lot of competitive pistol shooting and like to hand-load my own ammo. I save my cases, and powder/primers I buy locally, but the actual bullets/projectiles I generally mail order.
Given that its just tightly packed bullets a lot of those packages are essentially just a big package of lead. Doesn't take up much space, but its really heavy.
Being able to ship 50lbs worth of material for $13 is a great help.
Letters, under a certain dimensional limit, are single-rate, but parcel delivery is billed by size and distance.
Well yes, but its also cheaper than UPS or Fedex, generally faster (Priority mail barely costs anything more than First class and only takes three days) AND has Saturday delivery (which will still be operational for packages even after Saturday letter delivery stops later this year).
Combine that with their flat-rate boxes (UPS/Fedex always take weight into consideration) and USPS is pretty much awesome in my book. The only negative thing I've ever noticed is that their tracking info isn't as detailed, but it's plenty good enough for my needs.
Its an old saying, but appropriate in this context:
If atheism is a religion, then "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.
New York is already backpedaling on the 7 round limit (stating that the virtual non-existence of 7-round magazines is a problem). Its likely to be thrown out on constitutional challenge.
The Heller decision has already stated that a locality cannot outlaw a class of firearm "in common use". The reality is that 10 rounds is note even remotely "high capacity". Unless they're really small for concealability or fire particularly large ammo, standard handgun magazine capacity runs from 15 to 18 rounds. Based on the common use language in Heller its going to be hard to argue against any mag limit lower than 18.
And magazines to be limited in the number of rounds that they can hold to a sane number. If you require more than 10 rounds in a magazine in order to get one of them to hit the target, you have absolutely no business operating a firearm.
If nobody "with any business operating a firearm" needs more than 10 rounds - why do virtually all police and military carry more than 10 rounds in their guns?
The police are of particular note. They are not soldiers - they are not engaged in war. They simply are prepared for a defensive situation that might pop up on the everyday environment (for any offensive situation that they plan on SWAT would be called in with even higher capacity guns).
These are the exact situations faced by any other civilian in society, yet we're told a 10 round magazine is plenty, while most cops are armed with Glock 22's with a 15-round magazine capacity and always carry at least 2 reloads on the belt (45 rounds in total).
Actually, yes I have no problem with that. When it comes to being easy a bomb is about the most dirt simple thing to produce. A gun is a contained explosion where you use the gases to perform a function. IE, the gas pushes the bullet down the barrel and in semi- or fully-automatic firearms works the action. A bomb is just the explosion without the contained part.
Lots of farmers buy huge quantities of ammonium nitrate, and there's no shortage of substitute materials out there if someone wants to build one.
Also, in case you're not aware - making explosives isn't even 100% illegal. Transporting them is, but for example a lot of people use an explosive called tannerite to build exploding targets. A high speed shock (ie, rifle bullet) will set of a pretty nice explosion, and its perfectly legal in most states so long as you use it where you mix it and don't leave the shooting range with it.
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYc6cZOSvB8
Bottom line, punish people for what they actually do, not what they might do. Anything else is the road to a police state.
a) Hunting deer is legal in quite a few states with 5.56. It certainly is here in SC. While I personally would go larger, I certainly wouldn't go "at least .308". .308 is overkill. My favorite deer rifle is a custom built bolt action in .257 Roberts which is MUCH less powerful than a .308 but works fine for deer.
b) The AR-15 is most commonly chambered in 5.56 NATO, but thats not universally the case. Its available in a whole lot of other configurations. In particular the .300 AAC Blackout round (5.56 case necked up to accept a .308" bullet) has become popular and many AR-15's have been coming in that lately since it uses all the same parts and magazines as 5.56 (the barrel is the only thing different). This round is most certainly suitable for hunting.
The reality is that "hunting" rifles for a long time have followed the same developments as military rifles. For the first 50 years of the 20th century bolt action "hunting" rilfes were all the rage because that's what the military had been using and there were a ton of them available on the surplus market. Time has progressed, and so has technology. The AR-15 is becoming far more popular in all aspects of shooting, including hunting. I personally will be building one of the aforementioned models in .300 AAC Blackout to do my hunting with as soon as the prices on the components calm down (gun prices have gone through the roof in the last few months).
The sporting purposes clause only applies to the import of a firearm (handguns similarly have a point system in place where features must be present to import them - which is why Glock when it was importing from Austria had to add adjustable sights to their guns that they then swapped back to fixed sights when they got here - stupid bureaucracy).
Anyways, long story short, the "sporting purposes" clause doesn't apply to any domestically manufactured firearm.
The receiver is still the gun on a bolt action. The action as a unit includes the bolt, bolt stop, triggerguard, magazine components, etc, and none of those are regulated. Just the actual receiver, which is exactly the same situation as a semi-auto. The only potential confusion is that AR's have two receivers - an upper and a lower receiver. Only one part in a gun ends up being regulated and for whatever reason they chose to serial # and restrict the lower. The upper receiver could have just as easily been the regulated part.
The slope has already gotten slippery. A printed gun by itself doesn't hurt anyone. It only has the POTENTIAL to be used in such a way that someone can be injured or killed.
If you want to stop the iterative process that you feel unnecessary, then we go to the core issue: its against the law to kill someone. If that's against the law most people won't do it. The people who still will won't have any issue breaking any chain of laws that lead up to that issue, so there's no sense in creating that chain of laws until we get to the actual problem, which is a murder.
I think that's the main point. Guns have been around for the better part of a millenia now. The basic principle of modern semi-automatic cartridge-fed firearms has been around for over 100 years. The reality is that people have been making these things with the most basic of tools LONG before modern 3d-printers and CNC machines were invented.
At its heart a gun is a pretty simple device. Those "high capacity magazines" that they keep whining about are a couple pieces of folded metal and a spring (alternatively, a printed plastic tube and a spring). Regulation of such things was always futile, and the better home manufacturing tools get (for all things) the harder it will become.
Eventually you have to accept the stark reality that people cannot be controlled. If they do something bad they can be punished, but that goal of controlling the populace to keep them from doing something in the first place is just a pipe dream.
The basis of the Nielsen system was that a representative group would convey the viewing habits of all customers.
What they're saying is that the Pirate Bay downloads are a good measure of what's popular - among both downloaders and paying customers.
Also, don't forget that there is overlap between the two groups. I download virtually every episode of Game of Thrones from TPB. I also maintain an HBO subscription. The reasoning is simple - I like to watch the show when it broadcasts but I also will rewatch the show a few times later as well. Beyond the first watching I want to watch at my own convenience without putting up with the aggravation that is HBO Go, so I go download the show there as well.
Similarly, I also have AMC and watch the first broadcast of The Walking Dead live, but then always download it so I can watch it a few more times.
To a large degree TPB operates in place of me having a DVR.
Actually a lot of people pay for Google these days. My work account and my ISP account are both by Google and are advertisement free.
Also - plenty of people listen to podcasts, which are mostly compiled via RSS. As a matter of fact that was my primary use of Google Reader - I used it to listen to podcasts and whatever computer I happened to be sitting down to without having to worry about syncing anything. All the ones I listed to were in the list and ready to go.
Actually seems like it could be a semi-legitimate complaint to me. Realistically what applications are there for a high-precision GPS outside of geological/territorial surveys and military intelligence?
Is it just me or is it getting really scary that people are starting to think this way?
Be it GPS, guns, encryption, or 64oz sodas, there seems to be a growing and vocal faction of people that think that if someone can show some defined "need" to have something then they shouldn't be able to have it.
The presence of tools should NEVER be interpreted as intention to commit a crime.