...we have a thinner placeholder page up on an alternate link for the next few days. One that doesn't inconvenience so many people if it gets smashed flat. Give it a few hours for DNSes to expire and refresh (or flush your DNS if you control it), and the show will go on.
Telling kids to obey or they'll burn in hell is a threat.
So is telling kids you'll spank them if they run out onto a freeway.
BTW, the Bible doesn't say that sinners'll burn permanently, just that sinners will be permanently burned. The illustration it uses is Gehenna, a valley which served as Jerusalem's rubbish dump. There was always a fire at Gehenna, but objects thrown onto that fire weren't always there. And there's no fire there now that there's nothing left to burn.
If you burned sinners constantly, you'd be keeping those sinners (and their sin) in some way alive. That's one of the contradictions (like death as a transition instead of a termination) in the common religious views which spawned theological oddities like the concept of Purgatory (or if you want a really baroque set of hells, several of the Eastern religions have thrown together detailed specs including diagrams:-).
Raising kids in a religious environment is child abuse.
what an unnecessary.sig
very untrue as well, any atheist or agnostic (like me) with a proper mindset would not conclude this. just because you may have had some bad experiences doesn't mean that every child growing up in a religious environment is abused.
please think about removing it, because you will not achieve anything positive with it. you'll just irritate people, and induce flame.
i know this is OT, but i don't mind wasting some karma on this.
It's not wasted karma, it's invested karma. If turkeys elect to burn mod points on your post (or this one) it spares another post part of a hammering and sooner or later they'll get seen. Or follow Tridge's rule and browse at -1. (-:
Religious education isn't a problem, but people who see things in black-and-white terms and won't reason things through (the classic example being people who mod down instead of posting a response) are indeed a problem. And the proportion of Atheists in this camp is at least as high as the percentage of fundamentalist Christians.
The takeaway lesson is IBM's old motto: "Think". Or to put it another way: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good" (-: OK, so I'm going for a wooden-spoon award.:-)
That children's show also features a Seaman Staines. And a few other whoppers - I'm amazed that nobody noticed for many years. Somebody, somewhere must have been a very happy little smartass for a very long time.
Michael Hunt is a useful contributor to the Perth Linux User Group lists (WestOz).
A few decades ago, I had a school-bus driver whose surname was Head. We had this annoying little whiner on the bus, one Lisa Green from Lane Cove, who would regularly ask "Mr Head, Mr Head?" until she got a response, then ask "Is your name Richard? Ha-ha-ha-ha..." (his name was John or something like that). After the two-hundredth repetition, the novelty kind of wore off.
Another school in Geraldton housed the unfortunate Wayne Kerr.
Had your laughs now? OK, move along, I'm sure there's a life waiting out there somewhere for you.
I most certainly can. Consequently, I don't appreciate you mischaracterising what I've said, or skipping over many of the important bits.
Bill Gates is solely responsible for Draconian international patent laws?
No, and nowhere did I claim he was. But Bill is using those laws, and he is lobbying in their support, and to have them extended.
overcharging them for an AIDS vaccine which doesn't yet exist?
No. He is overcharging them for his version of the vaccine, which has not yet been properly trialled. The Argentinians (for example) can manufacture such vaccines and have been able to for a while, but if they dare to try shipping them, the US uses economic pressure based on TRIPS laws to prevent it. Never mind the dying Africans, what about our profit - you insensitive clod?
He is responsible for poor local governance in African townships?
No. But USD$200M spent on his own <sarcasm>wonder</sarcasm>-vaccines instead of better sanitation and housing will act to reinforce and support the poor local governance instead of undermining it or even merely leaving it alone.
By your standards we are all murdering millions of Africans every hour.
Hundreds, not millions. Some organisations are working to intelligently address these deadly issues, but not many. And some of those organisations are being stopped by the UN because their work doesn't suit the UN's political agenda.
I'm finished arguing with you
Wrong again. You've just painted yourself into a corner, and this is the only way you see of salvaging any dignity as you leave. By being mean and pointing this out, I'm taking even that away from you, because I'd much rather see you face your blindness and overcome it. Think of it as being a greater kindness, as a father smacks a child so they remember to not run out onto the road and get mutilated by a passing car.
don't bother replying because I won't waste any more time reading it anyway.
Or more truthfully, you won't have the guts to admit that you have read it (see, you're reading it right now!) and you have no reasonable answer - but your mind's made up, and any inconvenient facts will only confuse, dismay and embarrass you. However, shoving your head into a bush (ostrich-style) does nothing to remove the painful facts, and if you continue to prate on about Bill's glory you'll be living and spreading a lie.
On the gripping hand, if it helps you to sleep better at night, my main intended audience here is the many others who will read our conversation and not comment. Hi!
This post dedicated to those who can remember the first home-coming scene (ie, not the one featuring Anne Uumellmahaye) from The Man With Two Brains, a Steve Martin classic.
...I had Ravioli di Ricotta con Tricolore and played some bizarre card game with ever-changing rules. That day was the coolest of the entire conf, but would still have been pretty warm for someone from a temperate climate.
...an interest in exercise and real food, so that if they're ever forced to follow suit, they won't feel as embarrassed as if it happened today?
If you look closely, you'll notice that Linus and Tridge in particular, while they aren't exactly Twiggy analogues, do have a reasonable amount of muscle about them. Tridge does a fair bit of walking, and I gather that Linus has a favourite gym.
Actually, if geeks in general did take more interest in their own well-being, it'd be a good deal easier to get proper Vegan-style food at a conf.
I'm a "vegetarian of convenience", that is, I'll aim for what I think I can get, and settle for whatever arrives. Linux Australia's VP and at least one other LCA attendee follow proper Vegan diets, and watching them trying to get food that was sans eggs (think noodles, sauces, mayo) and dairy (mayo, sauces, desserts) was an education. In one place, the cook only spoke Russian, so couldn't even explain what was in many of the components of her dishes, and Stewart simply gave up and went elsewhere rather than stare down a plain salad yet again.
Back at your original insinuation, there seem to be far fewer gays around than most gay organisations assert (it's human nature to overstate your case), and since a vanishingly small proportion (something like 0.1%) of known gays have a genetic predilection for femininity, I think we have to look to social factors for an explanation of a behaviour which is so clearly anti-survival (as in, medically risky in many ways, plus not predisposed toward reproduction).
Gays and geeks have minority status and ostracisation (but not good dress sense) in common, so I'd expect there to be a higher proportion of bent geeks than the proportion of gays in the general population.
In general, a gay geek is not going to stand up at every meeting and say stuff like, "Hi, I'm John and I'm gay" and of course there are blokes who are drama queens and yet 100% ironclad straight in sexual terms, so my figures are going to be very fuzzy (oh, yes, and I'm a bloke, so I'm not as aware of interpersonal relationsips as a typical sheila would be), but I'm guessing that there would have been about half as many bent male geeks there as femmes of all types.
I can't speak for the dunkees, but my attitude is that they could think and feel whatever they liked as I sat there in my Speedos, as long as they don't do anything regrettable about it. And the sight of my goose-pimpled body is hardly likely to drive anyone into paroxysms of desire. (-:
You are so blinded by hero-worship that you somehow overlook the big slab of his "charity" spending which is just self-serving financial masturbation, and account it as altruism as pure as the driven snow.
And look at that! I made my point without a single expletive! It really is possible!
If you expect me to accept Trey as a knight in shining armour, given his atrocious history (e.g. until he was worth well into the billions, his philanthropy - even including masturbatory tax rorts - was proportionally far worse than the average single supporting mother's), you're going to have to show me what those six sexually active billion dollars were actually spent on, and that Trey or one of his companies didn't get most of it back somehow, plus a tax writedown, plus positive press.
You can delete his donations for vaccination from the list for starters, since he owns the company which produces the vaccines involved. I have yet to find a significant donation of his or any of his companies that he failed to take back in some way.
As you look, you'll find him taking back where he has not given, for example having a speaker from his foundation sponsored to an "impartial" biology conference as the closing speaker by other companies so said speaker can extol the virtues of partnering with - surprise - Bill's own private companies for the delivery of "health" services worldwide.
"'A vaccine is the only way to end Aids for all time,' said Gates." - and why? 'Coz he owns a vaccine producer. The Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules of the WTO prevent Africans from making or buying vaccines at a reasonable price (the Argentinians actually tried to do this some years ago, so Clinton threatened trade sanctions against them if they went ahead), allowing only Trey's companies or those who licence from them to produce an AIDS vaccine at a price set by themselves.
Since it's Trey's companies making and selling the vaccine, Trey's sponsorship of it starts to look a little masturbatory already - "but wait, there's more!" The UN and assorted charities will spend money subsidising such a vaccine, which is only expensive in the first place because Trey made it so. Where were we up to? Oh, yes, we had the UN reimbursing Gates's "donations". "But wait - there's more!"
The subsidies will not completely cover the cost, so the gap must be supported from other funds - in particular, with money from governments which can't even afford to bring clean water to many of their own people. So the end effect of Gates' USD$100M donation for AIDS vaccine research (about a dollar for every African who's died of AIDS so far, and as ay July 2003 that was up to USD$200M) is to support his own companies, at the expense of the UN, western charities, and countries already against the wall financially.
You might want to consider how many Africans have already died because Bill's IP claims have slowed the progress of validating an AIDS vaccine. You might want to consider how many more innocents will die because money which would have provided essential services to their village was redirected to artificially expensive vaccines aimed at the protecting the least responsible segment of their own communities.
Now put yourself in a little African village, where diseases like botulism have killed your brothers, sisters, counsins or maybe your own children or spouse because the water supply - such as it is - is filthy. You have no car, no 'phone, no computer. You're helpless. Then you learn that a project to clean up your water supply was cancelled due to lack of funds, and soon afterwards, vaccines arrive to cure some of the might-makes-right rulers in your area and their friends. How do you feel about that? I'd feel a certain amount of hate for the people that had hurt me yet again...
OK, so we followed down one fork of Bill's philanthropic donations. It turned out to have a negative donation value, and a negative philanthropic value. If you're game, we'll follow down some more forks. If you want references, just ask.
Nice people to deal with, too. Hand out training, and follow up properly, the works.
It's pity that the Computer Angels people were all tied down in Perth this year. I understand that many such groups in Oz are yakking about a coordinated national effort as I type.
An inordinate proportion of those were geniuses or stunners or in influential positions, too. It's a significant improvement over last year in terms of quantity, and I think the quality has remained high.
We also got to meet a few wives ("Mrs Davies", "Mrs Russell" and so on). Wives-of-geeks tend to be painfully shy, but the few I've met also tend to be good-natured, helpful and friendly. At least one is a stark, stark contrast to her husband in terms of social skills.
Pia Smith is one "notary" <g/d/r> geek who wasn't in the dunking shots because she was (and probably still is) in hospital with a respiratory ailment.
OTOH, you're not far off the money in terms of fitness. Very few Mr Universes in that crowd, including me, although there were also relatively few either extremely obese or extremely scrawny. I don't go about eyeing off other blokes' bodies - that kind of thing generally holds no interest at all for me - but casting back through my memory (and photos), that's the conclusion I've come to.
...I'd say Linus was pretty competitive. If Linus' real worth was worth $1M and he gave $10,000 this way every year, that's 1% of his worth; presume that William Henry "Trey" Gates III, son and grandson of rich lawyers, is really worth $100G and he has to donate $1G every year to match that proportionally.
If you disallow donations which feed straight back into his own company (e.g. here is a donation for software but it must all be Microsoft; here is a donation for scholarships but the beneficiaries must use our software and mention it positively on every significant public occasion; here is a donation for vaccines, which you must buy from my new drug company... starting to get the picture?) because they're really investments (we won't get into image value yet) Bill's largesse is effectively zero.
Slashdot Mirror
then sooner or later it won't be an insult, it'll be a fact. GIGO, y'know.
...we have a thinner placeholder page up on an alternate link for the next few days. One that doesn't inconvenience so many people if it gets smashed flat. Give it a few hours for DNSes to expire and refresh (or flush your DNS if you control it), and the show will go on.
...it probably represents a saving in blue and green ink. (-:
The server's link is being pounded into the sand by the traffic already, and we've not peaked yet. And there are other sites hosted there. )-:
Please lay off that link for a few days!
Ta. We'll see how it all pans out.
...I mean, given all of the other innuendo the cartoon contained...
So is telling kids you'll spank them if they run out onto a freeway.
BTW, the Bible doesn't say that sinners'll burn permanently, just that sinners will be permanently burned. The illustration it uses is Gehenna, a valley which served as Jerusalem's rubbish dump. There was always a fire at Gehenna, but objects thrown onto that fire weren't always there. And there's no fire there now that there's nothing left to burn.
If you burned sinners constantly, you'd be keeping those sinners (and their sin) in some way alive. That's one of the contradictions (like death as a transition instead of a termination) in the common religious views which spawned theological oddities like the concept of Purgatory (or if you want a really baroque set of hells, several of the Eastern religions have thrown together detailed specs including diagrams :-).
It's not wasted karma, it's invested karma. If turkeys elect to burn mod points on your post (or this one) it spares another post part of a hammering and sooner or later they'll get seen. Or follow Tridge's rule and browse at -1. (-:
Religious education isn't a problem, but people who see things in black-and-white terms and won't reason things through (the classic example being people who mod down instead of posting a response) are indeed a problem. And the proportion of Atheists in this camp is at least as high as the percentage of fundamentalist Christians.
The takeaway lesson is IBM's old motto: "Think". Or to put it another way: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good" (-: OK, so I'm going for a wooden-spoon award. :-)
His team appears to have kicked your sorry little backsides all over the court fairly regularly.
That children's show also features a Seaman Staines. And a few other whoppers - I'm amazed that nobody noticed for many years. Somebody, somewhere must have been a very happy little smartass for a very long time.
Michael Hunt is a useful contributor to the Perth Linux User Group lists (WestOz).
A few decades ago, I had a school-bus driver whose surname was Head. We had this annoying little whiner on the bus, one Lisa Green from Lane Cove, who would regularly ask "Mr Head, Mr Head?" until she got a response, then ask "Is your name Richard? Ha-ha-ha-ha..." (his name was John or something like that). After the two-hundredth repetition, the novelty kind of wore off.
Another school in Geraldton housed the unfortunate Wayne Kerr.
Had your laughs now? OK, move along, I'm sure there's a life waiting out there somewhere for you.
I most certainly can. Consequently, I don't appreciate you mischaracterising what I've said, or skipping over many of the important bits.
No, and nowhere did I claim he was. But Bill is using those laws, and he is lobbying in their support, and to have them extended.
No. He is overcharging them for his version of the vaccine, which has not yet been properly trialled. The Argentinians (for example) can manufacture such vaccines and have been able to for a while, but if they dare to try shipping them, the US uses economic pressure based on TRIPS laws to prevent it. Never mind the dying Africans, what about our profit - you insensitive clod?
No. But USD$200M spent on his own <sarcasm>wonder</sarcasm>-vaccines instead of better sanitation and housing will act to reinforce and support the poor local governance instead of undermining it or even merely leaving it alone.
Hundreds, not millions. Some organisations are working to intelligently address these deadly issues, but not many. And some of those organisations are being stopped by the UN because their work doesn't suit the UN's political agenda.
Wrong again. You've just painted yourself into a corner, and this is the only way you see of salvaging any dignity as you leave. By being mean and pointing this out, I'm taking even that away from you, because I'd much rather see you face your blindness and overcome it. Think of it as being a greater kindness, as a father smacks a child so they remember to not run out onto the road and get mutilated by a passing car.
Or more truthfully, you won't have the guts to admit that you have read it (see, you're reading it right now!) and you have no reasonable answer - but your mind's made up, and any inconvenient facts will only confuse, dismay and embarrass you. However, shoving your head into a bush (ostrich-style) does nothing to remove the painful facts, and if you continue to prate on about Bill's glory you'll be living and spreading a lie.
On the gripping hand, if it helps you to sleep better at night, my main intended audience here is the many others who will read our conversation and not comment. Hi!
...you should be able to hook a longwire directly to your audio-out jacks and transmit MW AM directly with unbelievably good fidelity?
This post dedicated to those who can remember the first home-coming scene (ie, not the one featuring Anne Uumellmahaye) from The Man With Two Brains, a Steve Martin classic.
...elephant man?
...I had Ravioli di Ricotta con Tricolore and played some bizarre card game with ever-changing rules. That day was the coolest of the entire conf, but would still have been pretty warm for someone from a temperate climate.
...an interest in exercise and real food, so that if they're ever forced to follow suit, they won't feel as embarrassed as if it happened today?
If you look closely, you'll notice that Linus and Tridge in particular, while they aren't exactly Twiggy analogues, do have a reasonable amount of muscle about them. Tridge does a fair bit of walking, and I gather that Linus has a favourite gym.
Actually, if geeks in general did take more interest in their own well-being, it'd be a good deal easier to get proper Vegan-style food at a conf.
I'm a "vegetarian of convenience", that is, I'll aim for what I think I can get, and settle for whatever arrives. Linux Australia's VP and at least one other LCA attendee follow proper Vegan diets, and watching them trying to get food that was sans eggs (think noodles, sauces, mayo) and dairy (mayo, sauces, desserts) was an education. In one place, the cook only spoke Russian, so couldn't even explain what was in many of the components of her dishes, and Stewart simply gave up and went elsewhere rather than stare down a plain salad yet again.
Back at your original insinuation, there seem to be far fewer gays around than most gay organisations assert (it's human nature to overstate your case), and since a vanishingly small proportion (something like 0.1%) of known gays have a genetic predilection for femininity, I think we have to look to social factors for an explanation of a behaviour which is so clearly anti-survival (as in, medically risky in many ways, plus not predisposed toward reproduction).
Gays and geeks have minority status and ostracisation (but not good dress sense) in common, so I'd expect there to be a higher proportion of bent geeks than the proportion of gays in the general population.
In general, a gay geek is not going to stand up at every meeting and say stuff like, "Hi, I'm John and I'm gay" and of course there are blokes who are drama queens and yet 100% ironclad straight in sexual terms, so my figures are going to be very fuzzy (oh, yes, and I'm a bloke, so I'm not as aware of interpersonal relationsips as a typical sheila would be), but I'm guessing that there would have been about half as many bent male geeks there as femmes of all types.
I can't speak for the dunkees, but my attitude is that they could think and feel whatever they liked as I sat there in my Speedos, as long as they don't do anything regrettable about it. And the sight of my goose-pimpled body is hardly likely to drive anyone into paroxysms of desire. (-:
You are so blinded by hero-worship that you somehow overlook the big slab of his "charity" spending which is just self-serving financial masturbation, and account it as altruism as pure as the driven snow.
And look at that! I made my point without a single expletive! It really is possible!
If you expect me to accept Trey as a knight in shining armour, given his atrocious history (e.g. until he was worth well into the billions, his philanthropy - even including masturbatory tax rorts - was proportionally far worse than the average single supporting mother's), you're going to have to show me what those six sexually active billion dollars were actually spent on, and that Trey or one of his companies didn't get most of it back somehow, plus a tax writedown, plus positive press.
You can delete his donations for vaccination from the list for starters, since he owns the company which produces the vaccines involved. I have yet to find a significant donation of his or any of his companies that he failed to take back in some way.
As you look, you'll find him taking back where he has not given, for example having a speaker from his foundation sponsored to an "impartial" biology conference as the closing speaker by other companies so said speaker can extol the virtues of partnering with - surprise - Bill's own private companies for the delivery of "health" services worldwide.
"'A vaccine is the only way to end Aids for all time,' said Gates." - and why? 'Coz he owns a vaccine producer. The Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules of the WTO prevent Africans from making or buying vaccines at a reasonable price (the Argentinians actually tried to do this some years ago, so Clinton threatened trade sanctions against them if they went ahead), allowing only Trey's companies or those who licence from them to produce an AIDS vaccine at a price set by themselves.
Since it's Trey's companies making and selling the vaccine, Trey's sponsorship of it starts to look a little masturbatory already - "but wait, there's more!" The UN and assorted charities will spend money subsidising such a vaccine, which is only expensive in the first place because Trey made it so. Where were we up to? Oh, yes, we had the UN reimbursing Gates's "donations". "But wait - there's more!"
The subsidies will not completely cover the cost, so the gap must be supported from other funds - in particular, with money from governments which can't even afford to bring clean water to many of their own people. So the end effect of Gates' USD$100M donation for AIDS vaccine research (about a dollar for every African who's died of AIDS so far, and as ay July 2003 that was up to USD$200M) is to support his own companies, at the expense of the UN, western charities, and countries already against the wall financially.
You might want to consider how many Africans have already died because Bill's IP claims have slowed the progress of validating an AIDS vaccine. You might want to consider how many more innocents will die because money which would have provided essential services to their village was redirected to artificially expensive vaccines aimed at the protecting the least responsible segment of their own communities.
Now put yourself in a little African village, where diseases like botulism have killed your brothers, sisters, counsins or maybe your own children or spouse because the water supply - such as it is - is filthy. You have no car, no 'phone, no computer. You're helpless. Then you learn that a project to clean up your water supply was cancelled due to lack of funds, and soon afterwards, vaccines arrive to cure some of the might-makes-right rulers in your area and their friends. How do you feel about that? I'd feel a certain amount of hate for the people that had hurt me yet again...
OK, so we followed down one fork of Bill's philanthropic donations. It turned out to have a negative donation value, and a negative philanthropic value. If you're game, we'll follow down some more forks. If you want references, just ask.
Nice people to deal with, too. Hand out training, and follow up properly, the works.
It's pity that the Computer Angels people were all tied down in Perth this year. I understand that many such groups in Oz are yakking about a coordinated national effort as I type.
An inordinate proportion of those were geniuses or stunners or in influential positions, too. It's a significant improvement over last year in terms of quantity, and I think the quality has remained high.
We also got to meet a few wives ("Mrs Davies", "Mrs Russell" and so on). Wives-of-geeks tend to be painfully shy, but the few I've met also tend to be good-natured, helpful and friendly. At least one is a stark, stark contrast to her husband in terms of social skills.
Pia Smith is one "notary" <g/d/r> geek who wasn't in the dunking shots because she was (and probably still is) in hospital with a respiratory ailment.
OTOH, you're not far off the money in terms of fitness. Very few Mr Universes in that crowd, including me, although there were also relatively few either extremely obese or extremely scrawny. I don't go about eyeing off other blokes' bodies - that kind of thing generally holds no interest at all for me - but casting back through my memory (and photos), that's the conclusion I've come to.
...I'd say Linus was pretty competitive. If Linus' real worth was worth $1M and he gave $10,000 this way every year, that's 1% of his worth; presume that William Henry "Trey" Gates III, son and grandson of rich lawyers, is really worth $100G and he has to donate $1G every year to match that proportionally.
If you disallow donations which feed straight back into his own company (e.g. here is a donation for software but it must all be Microsoft; here is a donation for scholarships but the beneficiaries must use our software and mention it positively on every significant public occasion; here is a donation for vaccines, which you must buy from my new drug company... starting to get the picture?) because they're really investments (we won't get into image value yet) Bill's largesse is effectively zero.
...two days before. "Notaries" may well be accurate. (-:
However, yes, I favour "notables" or "of notoriety".
...really stood for Reversed IFF?
...it's against health regs and the Uni's insurance wouldn't cover it.
Ohhhh... Wendy! (-: <g/d/r>