Good thing it linewraps then, otherwise you'd have to hit return all the time;) Also, at least here the field extends to the width of the table cell (minus margins) of the comment you're replying to. Thats at least some 200 characters on my screen. This paragraph hasn't reached the end of the line yet. I think the "problem" (if it can be called that) is with your browser/screen/window size. In any case, depending a bit on what browser you're using, there are probably addons to let you launch external text editors:)
The press release (Swedish) from PTS (the regulating body referred to) makes it clear that the word is banned unless for banks or if it is otherwise clear that the name in question can not lead to misunderstandings.
A little more information than what you can get from the summary, TFA or the contentless blog rant TFA links to.
1 - How stupid can a person be before he is legally considered handicaped?
I know you jest, but if you actually happen to be interested it is - grossly simplified - at an IQ of about 70. IQ far from tells the entire picture, but at least where I live (Sweden), the state (and other state related functions) is obliged by law to provide certain extra help to people with an IQ sub 70. The tests are usually (possibly always?) administered by a psychologist that also weighs in their professional opinion about the person's capability of functioning normally.
I was about to make some snide remark about how suited such people were to own cats and handle computers, but it struck me that having a cat might very well be a good level responsibility (when greater responsibilities are out of the question) and a computer could help keep up to date and in touch with the world when other means are unavailable/limited.
Actually, that statement is about as far from the truth as it can get. GPL is nothing about the developers' freedoms. It's all about the users' freedom. It's a bill of rights for the users. It guarantees users' freedoms at the expense of developers' freedoms, in much the same way a bill of rights guarantees citizens' freedoms at the expense of the goverment's.
This sounds very strange. I'm going to refrain from throwing out obvious car analogies, but how can you be convicted for crimes someone else committed? Does this apply to all parts of the carrier chain? Your ISP? The phone company whose physical lines the ISP is using? The state owning the ground those lines are in?
In my opinion, Neal Stephenson writes more approachable. I feel more involved. His writing seems to me less constructed and more flowing. But to me it also seems his down-side: The plot seems a bit unplanned, getting out of hand, the ending somewhat hurried.
Some slashdotter, in some previous thread about Stephenson uttered the excellent words "Neal Stephenson doesn't do endings. At some point, he just declares victory and stops writing." (admittedly, I'm not sure I got the quote entirely right - it's been several years). It was so spot on that the words "declare victory and stop..." has become a catch phrase at my work for whenever we think a task won't benefit much from having more hours assigned to it. I think it describes most of his books quite well. That said, his books are (apart from lack of endings) generally very good, and he might very well be my favorite author...
The problem with supporting the Pirate Bay is that...
Some people (I won't use the term most even though I believe it to be true) don't really believe that the TPB people are innocent and should go entirely free. They do however believe that the sentences were outrageous, way out of proportion for their crime, and that the trial was a farce.
Arguing that shop lifting isn't a capital offense is not "supporting shop lifters" either...
Only... it never happened. So your point (if there was any) is moot. Not arguing against the rest of your rant - but bashing a language for a poor design choice that was never happened seems a bit silly.
Is there really any useful purpose to be served by dredging this up?
No. There is nothing useful to be learned from history. Close your eyes, put the pedal to the metal, and assume that whatever you're doing, it's the right thing, and that nobody has ever tried it before.
No, the pound coin in its current form hasn't been around for more than a few decades. But the pound as a monetary unit is more than a thousand years old and did indeed represent the value of one pound of silver. The first coin to to be worth this much was, afaik, the Sovereign which was introduced in the late fifteenth century.
Why is domaining "wrong" and those other speculative businesses "right?"
Any business that is based on artificially creating scarcity where there is none - i.e. depriving the society of abundant, or at least existing resources - is "wrong" (imo). Only if the resource in question has some inherent dangerous property could it be considered "right" to do so, but then it should certainly not be up to private interests to do so for monetary gain.
The comparison with businesses dealing with natural resources, while somewhat apt, is partly missing the point. Those businesses (while evil in various degrees - the diamond industry probably winning the prize) at least provide some service. I.e., they dig the stuff out of the ground and distribute it to the people who "need" it. The real estate business maintain the estate while it is "unused", and so on. Cybersquatters - or, ahem, sorry, domainers (why do I have a sense of deja vu when I hear that term?) - provide no service at all. They just create artificial scarcity.
So tell me, fellow resident, what problems are more "real" than the government imposing laws that serve corporations better than than the public, freedom of speech being abolished and kangaroo courts sentencing citizens to completely unproportional penalties, ruining their lives forever?
Please awaken me to the horrors we Swedish citizens have to face every day, that makes these trivialities pale in comparison.
While it is wholly ridiculous to believe that this would have any real effect on the TBP people while they resided in Sweden, it may or may not give Italian authorities cause to intervene if any of them ever visited Italy.
Brains capable of producing decent code are actually a scarce resource.
True. What is alsy true is that decent code is actually high in demand. So that the brains capable of producing it will be get fed, no matter the license.
If not, our economic system is at fault. Not the lack artificial scarcity.
Why? If I don't care about the harm I do to other people, why do you get to tell me that I should care? Why do you get to tell me that it's "bad"?
I'm sorry. I'm going to stop playing this game with you. You're obviously always going to win, because whatever I say, you are, like a five-year-old, going to follow up with a "why?". If we can't agree on such a fundamental thing such as "suffering is bad", then I guess it's time for us (yes, you included) to take a bunch of philosophy courses, and get back to the discussion in a year;)
Now, I'm not saying being against abortion is wrong, you have the right to your beliefs, but if the web page they blocked was like the signs they posted on the roads when protesting the Planned Parenthood going up in the Aurora/Naperville IL area, I can understand why it went on the filter
There's a huge difference between posting signs on the road and having a web page. One you must actively seek out on your own, presumably in the comfort of your home. The other is shoved in your face under circumstances where, if you overreact to the pictures, you may cause the death of yourself and the people around you.
Censorship of the web may be excusable in very extreme circumstances. I have yet to find such a circumstance.
What if someone made the same claim about murder? Would you agree with them? If not, then by what means would you evaluate their claim and decide that it's false?
It is really quite simple. Something is bad when someone suffers from it. People do not suffer from being allowed to be together with the ones they love. People do suffer from being murdered (well, arguably in that case, as most rational people are of the opinion that dead beings don't experience anything, but that's another thing entirely).
In short, whether something is "bad" or not can be answered by simply asking the proposed victim if he/she minds: Do you mind spending your life with the one you love? Do you mind if I kill you?
Try it, and see what the answers to the respective questions are:)
Morals is all about whether someone (directly or indirectly) suffers from your actions (or lack of action).
Slashdot Mirror
Even an AC should understand significant figures.
1.4 million Swedish kronor = 140000 Euros.
1,378,525 Swedish kronor, as was the exact number mentioned in the article, however, currently amounts to 136,420.70 Euros
Good thing it linewraps then, otherwise you'd have to hit return all the time ;) :)
Also, at least here the field extends to the width of the table cell (minus margins) of the comment you're replying to. Thats at least some 200 characters on my screen. This paragraph hasn't reached the end of the line yet. I think the "problem" (if it can be called that) is with your browser/screen/window size. In any case, depending a bit on what browser you're using, there are probably addons to let you launch external text editors
The press release (Swedish) from PTS (the regulating body referred to) makes it clear that the word is banned unless for banks or if it is otherwise clear that the name in question can not lead to misunderstandings.
A little more information than what you can get from the summary, TFA or the contentless blog rant TFA links to.
I know you jest, but if you actually happen to be interested it is - grossly simplified - at an IQ of about 70. IQ far from tells the entire picture, but at least where I live (Sweden), the state (and other state related functions) is obliged by law to provide certain extra help to people with an IQ sub 70. The tests are usually (possibly always?) administered by a psychologist that also weighs in their professional opinion about the person's capability of functioning normally.
I was about to make some snide remark about how suited such people were to own cats and handle computers, but it struck me that having a cat might very well be a good level responsibility (when greater responsibilities are out of the question) and a computer could help keep up to date and in touch with the world when other means are unavailable/limited.
Well, you obviously haven't tried before, so why on earth start now?
Actually, that statement is about as far from the truth as it can get. GPL is nothing about the developers' freedoms. It's all about the users' freedom. It's a bill of rights for the users. It guarantees users' freedoms at the expense of developers' freedoms, in much the same way a bill of rights guarantees citizens' freedoms at the expense of the goverment's.
GNU/Screen lets you share terminal between several clients.
Emacs lets you share edited buffer between several clients.
Pick your VOIP of choice, or let them use IRC.
And Mercurial or some other distributed version control for when they're working apart.
No, they're not dead, dead, dead simple, but easy enough if you give them step by step instructions.
[citation needed]
This sounds very strange. I'm going to refrain from throwing out obvious car analogies, but how can you be convicted for crimes someone else committed? Does this apply to all parts of the carrier chain? Your ISP? The phone company whose physical lines the ISP is using? The state owning the ground those lines are in?
Some slashdotter, in some previous thread about Stephenson uttered the excellent words "Neal Stephenson doesn't do endings. At some point, he just declares victory and stops writing." (admittedly, I'm not sure I got the quote entirely right - it's been several years). It was so spot on that the words "declare victory and stop..." has become a catch phrase at my work for whenever we think a task won't benefit much from having more hours assigned to it. I think it describes most of his books quite well.
That said, his books are (apart from lack of endings) generally very good, and he might very well be my favorite author...
The problem with supporting the Pirate Bay is that...
Some people (I won't use the term most even though I believe it to be true) don't really believe that the TPB people are innocent and should go entirely free. They do however believe that the sentences were outrageous, way out of proportion for their crime, and that the trial was a farce.
Arguing that shop lifting isn't a capital offense is not "supporting shop lifters" either...
Only... it never happened. So your point (if there was any) is moot. Not arguing against the rest of your rant - but bashing a language for a poor design choice that was never happened seems a bit silly.
Windowsium?
No. There is nothing useful to be learned from history.
Close your eyes, put the pedal to the metal, and assume that whatever you're doing, it's the right thing, and that nobody has ever tried it before.
Kids these days. What do you learn in school?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sterling#Anglo-Saxon
No, the pound coin in its current form hasn't been around for more than a few decades. But the pound as a monetary unit is more than a thousand years old and did indeed represent the value of one pound of silver. The first coin to to be worth this much was, afaik, the Sovereign which was introduced in the late fifteenth century.
What's your definition of "very long"?
Why is domaining "wrong" and those other speculative businesses "right?"
Any business that is based on artificially creating scarcity where there is none - i.e. depriving the society of abundant, or at least existing resources - is "wrong" (imo). Only if the resource in question has some inherent dangerous property could it be considered "right" to do so, but then it should certainly not be up to private interests to do so for monetary gain.
The comparison with businesses dealing with natural resources, while somewhat apt, is partly missing the point. Those businesses (while evil in various degrees - the diamond industry probably winning the prize) at least provide some service. I.e., they dig the stuff out of the ground and distribute it to the people who "need" it. The real estate business maintain the estate while it is "unused", and so on.
Cybersquatters - or, ahem, sorry, domainers (why do I have a sense of deja vu when I hear that term?) - provide no service at all. They just create artificial scarcity.
Your sig is remarkably apt, after that quote...
So tell me, fellow resident, what problems are more "real" than the government imposing laws that serve corporations better than than the public, freedom of speech being abolished and kangaroo courts sentencing citizens to completely unproportional penalties, ruining their lives forever?
Please awaken me to the horrors we Swedish citizens have to face every day, that makes these trivialities pale in comparison.
While it is wholly ridiculous to believe that this would have any real effect on the TBP people while they resided in Sweden, it may or may not give Italian authorities cause to intervene if any of them ever visited Italy.
If they did, they would not be the first country to do so.
Linux.
Your turn.
Brains capable of producing decent code are actually a scarce resource.
True. What is alsy true is that decent code is actually high in demand. So that the brains capable of producing it will be get fed, no matter the license.
If not, our economic system is at fault. Not the lack artificial scarcity.
Yep. And as you can see, the idea is hardly new.
And a two sentence post is enough to prove that someone is a native English speaker? :)
I'm sorry. I'm going to stop playing this game with you. You're obviously always going to win, because whatever I say, you are, like a five-year-old, going to follow up with a "why?". ;)
If we can't agree on such a fundamental thing such as "suffering is bad", then I guess it's time for us (yes, you included) to take a bunch of philosophy courses, and get back to the discussion in a year
There's a huge difference between posting signs on the road and having a web page.
One you must actively seek out on your own, presumably in the comfort of your home.
The other is shoved in your face under circumstances where, if you overreact to the pictures, you may cause the death of yourself and the people around you.
Censorship of the web may be excusable in very extreme circumstances. I have yet to find such a circumstance.
It is really quite simple. Something is bad when someone suffers from it. People do not suffer from being allowed to be together with the ones they love. People do suffer from being murdered (well, arguably in that case, as most rational people are of the opinion that dead beings don't experience anything, but that's another thing entirely).
In short, whether something is "bad" or not can be answered by simply asking the proposed victim if he/she minds:
Do you mind spending your life with the one you love?
Do you mind if I kill you?
Try it, and see what the answers to the respective questions are :)
Morals is all about whether someone (directly or indirectly) suffers from your actions (or lack of action).