The ones that the monitor spins around and you use a pen. Turns out those weren't as wonderful as we thought. Almost everyone used the keyboards after about 5 minutes.
Yup, because they were running Windows in conjunction with mostly off the shelf apps. This meant the UI was abysmal and not at all suited to the new use models.
Some time goes by, and we get the iPad. Its interesting, but I still don't get the *real* point of it.
It's just another form factor of device, one more suited to certain tasks than either smartphones or laptops.
The device itself isn't particularly useful for business.
Business is a vague term. Do you mean office work? No, it doesn't fit well into that market.
Not everyone runs around in fancy suits doing business on the go, smiling like stock photo people... not having time for a PC.
Of course not... but some people do. Lecturers, doctors and nurses, mechanics, field engineers, walking secretaries and receptionist types, etc.
Most of us use a desktop.
In the US and much of Europe I think "most" of us use laptops now.
I don't think screen size is an important factor, and I also don't think that available applications are the factor.
Umm... okay. That's great. Enjoy that belief.
Theres a million for the iphone, yet I only install maybe 10 on mine.
Are they the same 10 as everyone else and are you representative of the market?
Until someone finds a way to do useful database administration, or web development from one of these devices, I don't see them really finding a good use other than entertainment.
Well, then you lack vision. No one wants a tablet for database administration. However, doctors and nurses want them to pull up charts, reference data, light data entry, etc. Lots of other markets do as well. Guess what, you're not a target market. Get over it.
You don't think apple makes any money from all that info? You don't think they use it for anything?
You must be kidding.
I'm sure they use the data internally. They may provide anonymized data to partners, but no, I don't think it's likely they're selling all the personal info for advertising purposes. Remember, Apple is having trouble getting major magazines to buy into the iPad right now because they wouldn't budge on handing over credit card and personal data to the publishers who wanted to sell it to advertisers as part of their profit generation (as they do with print subscribers). It's not that Apple isn't interested in money, they just think protecting their reputation of looking after their users will make them more money in the long run.
Free of charge? Experience? Unlimited storage? Better bandwidth?
You misunderstand. I'm not asking why you'd want to go with services other than Apple's.Mac. I'm asking why you'd want to go with services that pretend to be.Mac instead of just using regular, off the shelf services for mail, jabber, backup disk, etc.
What?
For instance the remote desktop thingy
You mean Apple Remote Desktop? That doesn't rely upon the.Mac service that I know of. It's just a remote desktop client that runs on OS X (usually server).
Other examples would be Timemachine backups to whatever wireless router with an NTFS/FAT32 USB HDD.
That's not a function of.Mac either, it's just a limitation of the OS X built in backup (limited support for filesystems). The method used relies upon the journaling in HFS+ and they haven't spent the time to make it work with any other journaled filesystems, lt alone non-journaled ones. But this all has nothing to do with Apple's.Mac services.
Has nothing to do with MobileMe...
Right, so you still haven't pointed out anything you can do with.Mac or MobileMe or whatever that you can't replicate with other services.
...but still with inconvenient solutions from Apple just so they can sell more of their gear.
It's actually a real limitation based upon filesystems. You can use any wireless router plugged into an HFS+ hard drive.
I'd rather choose options which benefits _me_.
By all means you should choose what works for you, but I'm not seeing how Apple is making that intentionally difficult other than not going out of their way to port some of their software to other OS's and filesystems.
Or I could had got the option to upload my pictures with javascript and all (and eventually database if needed but I doubt it is) to any web server I want (I think you can upload from iWeb to anything? Not necessary MobileMe?)
You can upload to anything you want using iWeb, whether it is just to a directory or using FTP to a remote Web server anywhere.
I know there was a guide for how to set up a FreeBSD server as a.mac account but I don't think it has been updated for long.
I don't understand why you would do this. What is the benefit over using services not posing as Apple's service?
IMHO 99 dollars was expensive. And considering how much Apple machines cost + what iLife cost I think they could had offered it for free as an "Apple advantage"...
I agree, but then neither of us has access to the numbers. I think they'd be better off trying to include it as an expense that drives hardware adoption and it would be a lot more popular and become more of a differentiator as well as giving Apple leverage when they wanted interoperability with other Web services (ala, we have tens of millions of users on our service, want to seamlessly connect to them Facebook?).
...it's _NEEDED_ for some things it shouldn't be needed for.
I don't see the adoption of something by a dictator as a great endorsement.
I don't care about celebrity or anti-celebrity endorsements. I care about real world effects upon the stagnant and broken desktop OS market. Charles Manson wore Levis jeans, that's not a reason for me to avoid them.
And I am certain that the code in theirs own repository will contain some kind of monitoring system of some sort that will report back to today's KGB
It's called the FSB now, and they may well insert backdoors in code they contribute or in a fork. Of course, we can always audit the code (and our security agencies will for any we use) and you can compile your own Linux distro and be largely compatible with their systems. This is nice because it opens up innovation and moves a large group of users to both open code and open protocols, making it easier to interoperate and more profitable to develop for Linux.
This isn't being done because Putin believes in the GNU manifesto or the free software hippy fest, but purely for no other reason than cheapness.
What's wrong with that? Cheapness and efficiency are big parts of the "GNU manifesto" with enlightened self interest on the part of the users being key.
This is highly likely going to be a proprietary fork just like Google does with their internal Ubuntu distro.
Again, I don't see the problem. Google finds it cost effective to contribute back most of their changes because then they are incorporated into the main code base and the burden for maintaining a fork is greatly lessened. Realistically, I don't even see that Russia needs a fork or how it would benefit them. For Google, they like having a performance leg up for massively parrallel computing. Russia though, they mostly want servers and desktops and don't need a performance leg up. Likely they'll implement some proprietary applications, maybe even a security module or something, but for the most part there isn't a benefit to not giving the changes back and there is a cost.
With the backing of Putin, could this be the breakthrough free software has been waiting for?
I am pretty sure that Putin don't care about the freedom part of free software
Why is that? Putin is acting on behalf of the government who are primarily users, not developers of software they hope to sell. The 'freedom" part is freedom for him, and brings real benefits to him and his, like the ability to gain free code contributions from others around the world and the ability to comparison shop when looking at vendors for support and the like. Any code generated by the government will likely cost less in the long run if they contribute it back rather than maintaining a fork.
So really, while we may not see a pile of code contributions as a result of this, more adoption means more motivation to support it for hardware vendors and more motivation for application developers and tool creators to target it. And really, lack of momentum and market share is one of the biggest problems for OSS, a chicken and egg scenario.
Sorry, I didn't see your numbers - "sociologists" is plural, is that your data?
My point is there is no scientific evidence to support the causative hypothesis because there is no correlation as shown by any scientific study. If you want I can point you to some meta studies that summarize hundreds of different studies of gun control around the world, or studies of murder and violent crime rates and listings of gun laws around the world. What you're asking for is like asking for scientific evidence that there isn't a flying spaghetti monster controlling reality. The default state is "no" unless you can find evidence for something, there is no reason a scientist or rational person would have that belief.
There're two ways to demonstrate this scientifically, given the number of factors: * Equalize the US to Switzerland, in all possible ways. From the diet, to the climate, and of course the economy - and of course lowering the gun ownership ratio. * Abolishing guns on the US for 10 years, and see how it goes.
Scientifically, you can make useful predictions, like "if we institute strict gun control measures in a location, violent crime will decrease". Then you wait and look at what happens when that is the case and see if it's true a large enough percent of the time to be more than random chance. So far, no one has been able to show that. They have been able to show that the weapons used seem to change, but not an actual decrease in murder or violent crime in general.
You don't have to perform an experiment with the entire US. It's like saying the only way to prove condoms reduce teen pregnancy rates is to ban condoms throughout the world and see what happens.
If you support your own claims, you should be defending prohibition, at least to see whether it works. For science.
You seem to be mistaking me for an idiotic scientist who cannot extrapolate trends nor apply general cases to specific situations. It didn't seem to work anywhere it's been tried, but the only way to test scientifically is to try it again by passing laws that reduce freedom? That's shit logic.
In the meantime, the US still has the highest
Yes, we do have the highest... stoner in the world, his name is "Randy" and he likes Led Zeppelin.
Assuming you're going to argue that the US has the highest murder rates per capita or some such, well are rates are very high, but then our wealth disparity is very high, we have a huge addictive substance prohibition creating a crime war on our streets, we don't have anywhere near the social safety nets most first world countries do nor the same level of debt forgiveness for the destitute so we have a lot of desperate people. We have rapidly declining education rates, which haven't been even average for a while. We have the elderly and sick literally murdering their mail carriers so they can live in a nice prison and get healthcare instead of having to live on the streets. We treat drug addiction as a criminal problem instead of a medical one, don't have free treatment, and do send nonviolent offenders to prison where they contribute to one of the highest rates of incarceration in any country and where prisoners are not rehabilitated but are repeatedly raped, introduced to other criminals, taught violent behavior, abused by authority figures, then let back onto the streets.
On top of all this, whenever the problems of violence in our society are raised half the politicians loudly yell about how we need to ban guns, despite there being no evidence this will work. The other half yell about how we shouldn't ban guns and how we should incarcerate more people for longer periods and execute more people. And no one is willing to look at the real scientific body of evidence as to what actually does reduce violent crime within a society, despite, these measures having worked in dozens of other countries because apparently the only difference most people seem
You said that Switzerland and Sweden had "very high rates" of gun ownership, and then pointed out that they have low crime rates. The "height" of those rates, compared with US, is either half or one third.
True, if you measure it by number of firearms, but most sociologists do not. Rather they measure number of households with a firearm as a better measure of access as it somewhat irons out all those people with hundreds of firearms in a collection; and which do not meaningfully change access to them.
The rates are too different to apply the status to one end to the other. For example, it could happen that there's a "threshold" from which the crime rate dramatically starts increasing - say, 60%.
You could hypothesize that, but a hypothesis with no supporting evidence is not a scientifically supported hypothesis. It's just an idea that has not been tested in any way. Just because you form a hypothesis does not mean it is rational to believe that hypothesis.
Then you said that UK had a "very high rates of violent crime and murder". I just pointed out that they were not that high, at least in the murder case, and specially compared with the US rates.
Of course they aren't, nor would any sociologist expect them to be. One can predict rates of murder and violent crime based upon criteria that do show correlations across many countries. Look at the gini coefficient for the UK (34ish) compared to the US (45ish). With that much difference in wealth disparity there's going to be a huge difference in murder rate. Then add in socialized healthcare and drug addiction treatment programs, both of which make a significant difference.
You see if you want to support the hypothesis that gun control laws make a difference, you have to show a correlation that persists after you normalize for other known correlations. Then you have to show that this holds up as a correlation across a large data set, not just two or four countries.
Basically, I think you have an opinion, an idea that has NO scientific basis. So you're trying to find support for your opinion by trying to interpret incomplete and cherry picked statistics; because thats easier than forming a new opinion based upon the scientific evidence that has actually been collected to date. That is not the scientific method. That is not logical or rational. It's just irrational belief with pseudo-science to try to lend it credibility. It's about as rational and supported as young earth creationism.
Your retort sounds eerily similar to the 'if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide' chanters. Or, 'you conspiracy theorists are such nutters'.
You'll have to be more specific in your comparison. You see, the first phrase you cite is important because it refers to an argument that sidesteps civil rights, by trying to distract from the issue by trying to point to the number of people most affected will be small, as if that were relevant. As for conspiracy theorists... most are nutters. The reason conspiracy theories are considered dubious in general is because they require multiple disparate people to be secretly conspiring to hide a truth. For example, there are people that believe that all scientists and teachers are conspiring to lie to them about evolution because those people are secretly satanists. That's pretty crazy. Similarly, many theories require all news agencies to be conspiring together or all pilots t be conspiring or some such. It's simply so unlikely, those theories are easily dismissed by most rational people.
The EFF have identified an issue and provided scenarios of why this may be unwanted.
They identified an issue, but instead of documenting the real cases of abuse, like listing what hardware/software is hiding data in everything they print, they make up theoretical scenarios about what a company could possibly do in the future if they abuse technology they haven't even implemented yet, without any consideration for motivation. They do this because they want press to draw attention, but they're making a "boy who cried wolf" situation where you read their concerns, see that they're talking about theoretical possibilities and there is no motivation for the average person to do much of anything.
Even if you are so lacking in vision that you cannot see the danger from the described scenario, surely you can draw references from past events. How many times has it already transpired that something such as this was put in place only to have it misused by someone in a position of authority or for marketing purposes?
Umm, occasionally, but not very often., certainly not by companies who worry about pissing off their customers.
Furthermore, if there is a benefit to the consumer, why is that fact hidden rather than advertised as a feature? ? What's the consumer benefit to printing serial numbers or other identifiers(yellow dots) on every printed page that comes out of a printer?
I don't see that there is much benefit to that, which is why I think the EFF should have concentrated on that issue, instead of going off about GPS coordinates being tagged on photos, when there is consumer benefit and there has not been any instances of abuse recorded... ever that I've seen.
The fact is that these "features" are regularly added to these devices without the knowledge or consent of the consumer.
The only feature of this I know of is the printers. Everything else is advertised as a feature. My phone advertises that it can add GPS coordinates to pictures and it asks in the UI if I want to do it. It can be remotely disabled, and it advertises that as a feature, and as far as I know there has never been a reported instances of that feature being abused instead of applied by users to protect their data.
The fact that you lack vision doesn't mean that the problem or, at the very least, the potential of the problem doesn't exist.
It's not that I don't see potential for problems, it's just that I don't get upset about just potential. I don't want people warning me about potential problems, I want people letting me know about real problems and helping to draw attention to that. The EFF managed to water down the issue and make it seem like they are just getting hysterical about things that are just their pet theories. I don't get too worked up about biometric features potentially being added to my devices for theft control and potentially being abused, maybe, if they are ever implemented. Its hard to take the hysterics of others over it seriously and it just makes them look like alarmists.
Apple's iPhones know where you are when you use the maps and Apple can gather that data and use it to launch missiles at you! Adobe Photoshop can use the GPS data encoded into your photos and send that info to the CIA who will visit those places and scrawl lewd graffiti about your sexuality in all the nearby bathrooms, thus ruining your reputation in the locality and preventing you from being elected to political office!
This would be a lot more of a story if they actually cited some real misuse of data instead of just making claims about the evils that could hypothetically be committed using data that is otherwise kinda useful for the end user. I mean, seriously, it can collect biometric data for identification and store it if it fails as a way to identify who tried to use a device? How is that not something I want my devices to do to identify thieves and people trying to break the security of my systems? No, I don't want some company collecting biometric info on me and using it to track me for advertising or policing purposes, but unless there's actual evidence of such abuse, well it's not much of a story.
Trying to shoot a bear with a handgun would be the most idiotic thing you can do. It would only drive the bear mad.
Sigh. You shouldn't make assertions if you don't know what you're talking about. First, there are several types of bear in the US and second, there are suitable handgun calibers for shooting any of them in an emergency..50 caliber handguns are very common among linemen in Alaska because they need something small enough to carry up a telephone pole, but big enough to kill a grizzly bear that is climbing up the pole after them. For black bear, many common self defense calibers are large enough to kill one and many bear bow hunters carry one for just that purpose.
For the rest, I was just providing contradicting data to hypothesis that you have formulated and I don't defend.
I guess what i'm asking is, how does that data contradict my hypothesis? It doesn't show correlation between gun control laws and violent crime or murder. Also your assertion that the whole world agrees, seems weird when you then post numbers of murders for countries with very lax gun control, countries with very low violent crime rates. I can only assume you were guessing that the data you cited would support your opinions if it were paired with information on gun control laws?
You can almost always run away from a knife (throwing knifes effectively is very difficult), but it is almost impossible to outrun a bullet, so it is not the same logic.
Since we're talking about perceived and real threats, the logic is exactly the same. You must be completely misinterpreting my last post. Your assertions about the lethality of a particular weapon are fairly immaterial, especially since scientific evidence seems to indicate strict gun control laws don't make you any more likely to be murdered. The issue is that some people perceive a threat, and the previous poster claimed that was justification for bans on that perceived threat not being a restriction on freedom. Your unscientific perception about a different weapon is not relevant.
And it's not just the Spanish people, it's pretty much the whole developed world. The US is the minority there.
While I think number of households with a firearm is a better metric, that's not really the point? If there is a correlation, why isn't it showing up? Shouldn't Switzerland have a higher murder rate than the UK and Spain, for example? That it does not, and when you attempt to correlate across a large number of countries, I think pretty much everyone has to admit, it does not support the hypothesis that there is a significant causative relationship; especially when you look at other societal factors and see such dramatic correlations.
You want to know what the violent crime rate is an a country, tell me where it falls on Gini Coefficient for wealth disparity and it's easy to predict with reasonable accuracy. You don't even have to tell me what country it is.
Dude, the guy carrying a gun around is the one that is afraid.
Quite likely, many who carry guns do so out of fear. Some small portion probably have a good, and rational reason to do so. But that is all beside the point that the poster's fear of guns (his mention not mine) does not make a restriction on firearms a freedom or a conflict of freedoms. And that's okay. Many restrictions on freedom are justified and beneficial to society. I don't really see that this one is, or can be demonstrated to be scientifically, but I'm certainly open to someone who wants to present a rational case otherwise.
And it's not just the Spanish people, it's pretty much the whole developed world. The US is the minority there.
Argumentum ad populum?
There are plenty of countries with lax gun laws and very high rates of gun ownership in the first world (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland). These countries also have very low crime rates. There are countries with strict gun control laws and even knife control laws (Great Britain) but very high rates of violent crime and murder, relative to most of their neighboring countries. This suggests to me, and most sociologists, that gun laws do not have a significant causative effect upon violent crime and that passing laws to seriously restrict gun ownership is mostly the politics of appearing to do something, rather than a useful measure to actually reduce violent crime.
The government did not decide that people in my country shouldn't carry fire arms, the people decided that, on account of them being dangerous...
When people decide something, that's freedom. When people pass laws to enforce something for all people, that's government and it is a restriction not a freedom. That's not to say all restrictions on freedom are bad or unjust.
As for how dangerous they are, certainly they are used by criminals, and by suicides, and in accidental deaths... just like many things are. Cars, backyard pools, many things are very dangerous. Freedom is when people decide individually and choose. As for use in commission of crimes, while gun control laws reduce availability of firearms to criminals it's unclear that laws regarding guns actually reduce overall murder or violent crime rates more than they encourage murder and violent crime by making for a less even state between criminals and law abiding citizens. To date, there seems to be little correlation between the two, with murder and violent crime rates incredibly high and low in places with similar gun ownership and gun laws.
One does not need to live in a city to be safe from wildlife that wish to eat you.
You're never safe from wildlife that wishes to eat you, some of it is just very small and hard to shoot. My point is, it is important to consider the lifestyles of others and not try to take away the freedom of others to choose unless you can demonstrate a need (credible scientific evidence that restricting freedom brings benefit).
Of course I'm being defensive, you're the one with the gun buddy...
Because I'm going to shoot you over the internet? Or because you feel threatened when your opinons and reasoning are challenged?
...but may I point out that some people may decide that "deem necessary" has a broader meaning than carrying your piece through the woods full of things that like to eat you.
Absolutely. My question for you is, can you demonstrate logically and with scientific evidence that they are wrong? I know people who carry firearms all the time. One of them killed someone, right after that someone shot two other people with an illegally owned firearm. Who are you to say it was wrong for my acquaintance to carry a firearm, seeing as it likely saved at least one person's life while taking away that of a criminal? What about the 110 pound woman who is proficient in firearms after having been trained in the military, and is being stalked by a large, violent ex-boyfriend who has already assaulted her? Are you sure you think it is "right" and "just" for you to decide on her behalf that she should not carry a firearm when she goes to work?
My point is, freedom is the default state. Freedom is rights and responsibility in the hands of individuals and you need some pretty convincing data before I'm willing to agree that taking that freedom away from individuals is the correct choice for society.
Continuing from the previous point, perhaps my insulting of you and your people was jumping the gun a little, and I apologize for being a little trigger happy.
I accept your apology and appreciate you willingness to engage in civil discourse on the topic. Most people are so emotionally invested in these topics conversation degrades rapidly.
You can always tell someone is intelligent and about to make a persuasive logical argument when they start their comment with an emotionally based attack on the person they are responding to.
I don't need to have hours of nitpicking discussion about what is and isn't a murder, followed by your ridiculous home break-in axe murderer bullshit scenario
If you don't understand the difference between a "bullshit scenario" and an example that demonstrates a flaw in logic, maybe we should just stop the conversation here. You don't seem too interested in "logic" and crazy ideas like that, except as a talking point appeal to imagined authority (ala logic says you're a stupid head). Here's a hint, calling a logical example "bullshit", not answering the question, then ignoring the implications does not do anything to bolster your argument.
situation with guns involved more often escalates to death, than one with knives or sticks and stones, and that gunshot wounds more often, by their nature, create fatal injuries.
Really? That's a "fact" is it? You have a study to prove it? I ask because in Brazil they have fairly low gun ownership but very high murder and serious injury rates from drive by pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. Are guns are more likely to escalate to death than pipe bombs?
It's very nice of you to cite a study and all, but I don't see the relevance. That doesn't show any correlation with gun control laws. It for some reason misses Sweden but it does include Switzerland, with one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world (government issues rifles for the most part) and yet one of the lowest murder rates. I guess I don't see how this proves your hypothesis that guns cause higher rates of murder.
Yes, you can question the "reliability" of the underlying methods to hell freezes over.
This is called a "straw man argument". You should really look into that whole "informal logic" discipline, not just for winning arguments but for making rational decisions. It could change your life.
But that chart doesn't include the 40,000 plus deaths per year, that occur because your so called "freedom" results in children shooting other children in the US.
Certainly, firearm ownership does result in significant accidental death, among adults and children as well as higher rates of successful suicide (which I consider a positive as I believe in a right to death but many disagree). That said, backyard pools are more than an order of magnitude more likely to result in the accidental death of a child than firearm ownership in a home. Need they be banned as well? Are they an unacceptable freedom? Are you to make that decision on behalf of all parents?
Think of it this way. If I had a gun, and you were standing in front of me, I'd be sorely tempted to use it to put you out of my misery-- that's my freedom. Are you saying you'd like someone to "restrict" it?
If you truly lack that level of self control, then yes you have a mental problem and are not responsible enough to own a firearm, which hopefully you would realize, but if not, hopefully the state would. But then, you don't have a right to kill other people you disagree with. That's covered by laws called "murder".
I'm blather? I'm afraid I must disagree. I'm a human, one with some small understanding of informal logic and the scientific method; mental tools I apply to determine things and present them in a consistent and logical fashion. You note I address each of your points and reply to all of your questions. This is called the "rhetorical debate" method that sometimes actually leads to a productive conversation. Please actually address my points if you reply and do try to refrain from emotional outbursts and name calling. They make you seem like a juvenile, semi-hysterical jackass.
I was referring more to carrying a gun in every day life when you don't need it...
No, you were writing about the "freedom" of Americans to decide when they needed to carry a firearm instead of it being decided for them by the government. I know this because you wrote:
"Being able to carry a gun is one of the truly dumbest "freedoms" you Americans have."
Perhaps you intended to write something else, but you didn't. Maybe you need to slow down and spend a little more time thinking and composing before posting.
As for having a clue, I would wager I have more of a clue than you, as my choice of place to live does not involve a walk through 1.2 km of forest full of things that want to eat me, but to each their own.
Not all of us are as risk averse as you. As you write, to each their own. That's freedom.
Finally, killing off all dangerous wildlife in the world would certainly be a herculean task, but perhaps we can start with the gun wielding hicks such as yourself, and move on from there.
Getting a bit defensive are we? Do you really need to resort to personal attacks and cultural slurs like "hick"? Is your argument really so weak? Oh, yeah, it is. You've referred to me as "dumb" for valuing my freedom to carry a firearm when I deem necessary and a hick, for choosing not live in a city, packed like sardines in a can. Then you say maybe people like me should be killed. It sounds like you have some real mental problems. Your ego is very fragile and easily threatened if you have to lash out so readily. Perhaps you should see a counselor about low self esteem and xenophobia.
Being able to carry a gun is one of the truly dumbest "freedoms" you Americans have. You can keep it.
Try living in my old place and walking a 3/4 of a mile through woods full of bear every morning and evening to get to your car. Then you can tell me how "dumb" it is that you're free to carry a firearm. Do you even think a little bit about the fact that not everyone lives the same lifestyle you do, in the same environment? Or would you prefer we simply kill off all dangerous wildlife in the world? Perhaps you prefer people are not allowed to travel in areas with dangerous wildlife? Really do you have a clue at all?
Hmm. Did you bother to check gun deaths in Europe vs. gun deaths in the Untied States, before speaking? I didn't think so.
You apparently didn't bother to think much at all. Do take a look at violent crime and murders in Europe and South America, and North America and everywhere else, by country and even legal jurisdiction. Notice a correlation between those numbers and gun control laws? No? Gee neither does anyone else. Sweden, for example has very liberal gun control laws and high rates of ownership, but some of the lowest rates of murder and violent crime in the world. There are, however, many very good correlations with murder and violent crime, wealth disparity being one of the most stark.
And while we're at it, lets talk about "gun deaths". Where did this absurd term come from? It's an intentional logical misstatement of the problem invented by people who could not show a correlation between gun laws and murder and violent crime. So they play some statistical games and come up with numbers that at first blush as read by a layman seem to show what they wish was happening.
Scenario that demonstrates the logical misstatement:
Case 1, strict gun control laws in effect. An axe murderer broke into a home today and chopped up twelve children and three adults. Analysis using "gun crime" - 0 gun deaths yay! analysis using violent crime and murder as the problem - 15 murders.
Case 2, lax gun control laws in effect. An axe murderer broke into a home today and was shot at by the homeowner who then chased the psycho out into the street and shot him. Analysis using either "gun crime" or violent crime and murder as the problem - 1 manslaughter.
So, you really think a problem statement that results in the above, hypothetical, effect of gun control laws effectively helps society make proper choices? You think people are happier having been killed by an axe? When you come at problems with such a wrongheaded idea, you clearly cannot make a reasonable determination of what effective action is. As such, any study of "gun crime" statistics can be immediately trashed.
There's a clear urban/rural split in how gun rights affect people. In the cities, we want people to not have guns, because gangs use them to shoot at each other and everyone else. In rural areas, people with guns can use them to protect themselves.
No one in urban areas use guns to protect themselves? No one in rural areas uses them for crimes? I think it has more to do with cultural, politically ingrained beliefs, and a culture of hunting than it does any real difference in crime.
So please don't include me in the "we" on whose behalf you speak. Regardless of laws, criminals will get guns and other weapons and commit acts of violence. Laws restricting gun ownership make little difference to these numbers but a whole lot of very controllable factors do. Rather than making political points on either side and continuing a pointless, time wasting debate, we should be looking at the real solutions, most of which are a lot harder than another quick but useless gun control law. We should be looking at what works in other countries, even ones with very lax gun control laws and high gun ownership. Provide free addiction treatment; treat drug addiction as a medical problem, not a crime; reduce overall wealth disparity; provide social safety nets for the poor, sick, and elderly; remove laws that prevent bankruptcies from forgiving ALL the debt of the destitute; reduce prison populations and sentencing for nonviolent crimes and for people with low recidivism profiles; clean up the prisons so they aren't places where people go to become mentally unstable, unsuitable for society, and more proficient at crime and connected to criminals, but are instead actual rehabilitation. All of these things work other places, they're just hard and expensive and require we alter our perspectives on whether we're more interested in hurting those who have done wrong or making our society a better, less violent place.
Re:Okay, here's a question ...
on
New IE Zero Day
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And this is noteworthy why?
Because a significant number of people on Slashdot are security geeks and enjoy learning about exploits, or are sysadmins that manage at least some machines where the users can get to IE.
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The ones that the monitor spins around and you use a pen. Turns out those weren't as wonderful as we thought. Almost everyone used the keyboards after about 5 minutes.
Yup, because they were running Windows in conjunction with mostly off the shelf apps. This meant the UI was abysmal and not at all suited to the new use models.
Some time goes by, and we get the iPad. Its interesting, but I still don't get the *real* point of it.
It's just another form factor of device, one more suited to certain tasks than either smartphones or laptops.
The device itself isn't particularly useful for business.
Business is a vague term. Do you mean office work? No, it doesn't fit well into that market.
Not everyone runs around in fancy suits doing business on the go, smiling like stock photo people... not having time for a PC.
Of course not... but some people do. Lecturers, doctors and nurses, mechanics, field engineers, walking secretaries and receptionist types, etc.
Most of us use a desktop.
In the US and much of Europe I think "most" of us use laptops now.
I don't think screen size is an important factor, and I also don't think that available applications are the factor.
Umm... okay. That's great. Enjoy that belief.
Theres a million for the iphone, yet I only install maybe 10 on mine.
Are they the same 10 as everyone else and are you representative of the market?
Until someone finds a way to do useful database administration, or web development from one of these devices, I don't see them really finding a good use other than entertainment.
Well, then you lack vision. No one wants a tablet for database administration. However, doctors and nurses want them to pull up charts, reference data, light data entry, etc. Lots of other markets do as well. Guess what, you're not a target market. Get over it.
You don't think apple makes any money from all that info? You don't think they use it for anything?
You must be kidding.
I'm sure they use the data internally. They may provide anonymized data to partners, but no, I don't think it's likely they're selling all the personal info for advertising purposes. Remember, Apple is having trouble getting major magazines to buy into the iPad right now because they wouldn't budge on handing over credit card and personal data to the publishers who wanted to sell it to advertisers as part of their profit generation (as they do with print subscribers). It's not that Apple isn't interested in money, they just think protecting their reputation of looking after their users will make them more money in the long run.
Sorry for my ignorance regarding this tablet, but what OS is it planning to come with?
Android 2.1 Eclair OS
The flashy iPhoto album stuff to[sic]?
Yeah, it's nothing proprietary.
Free of charge? Experience? Unlimited storage? Better bandwidth?
You misunderstand. I'm not asking why you'd want to go with services other than Apple's .Mac. I'm asking why you'd want to go with services that pretend to be .Mac instead of just using regular, off the shelf services for mail, jabber, backup disk, etc.
What?
For instance the remote desktop thingy
You mean Apple Remote Desktop? That doesn't rely upon the .Mac service that I know of. It's just a remote desktop client that runs on OS X (usually server).
Other examples would be Timemachine backups to whatever wireless router with an NTFS/FAT32 USB HDD.
That's not a function of .Mac either, it's just a limitation of the OS X built in backup (limited support for filesystems). The method used relies upon the journaling in HFS+ and they haven't spent the time to make it work with any other journaled filesystems, lt alone non-journaled ones. But this all has nothing to do with Apple's .Mac services.
Has nothing to do with MobileMe ...
Right, so you still haven't pointed out anything you can do with .Mac or MobileMe or whatever that you can't replicate with other services.
...but still with inconvenient solutions from Apple just so they can sell more of their gear.
It's actually a real limitation based upon filesystems. You can use any wireless router plugged into an HFS+ hard drive.
I'd rather choose options which benefits _me_.
By all means you should choose what works for you, but I'm not seeing how Apple is making that intentionally difficult other than not going out of their way to port some of their software to other OS's and filesystems.
You can't have it both ways-- you either go Google and get your cloud for free with ads and metrics, or you actually pay money for your service.
Or a very profitable company pays for it for free but ties it to their hardware offerings in the hopes that it will drive sales of that hardware.
Or I could had got the option to upload my pictures with javascript and all (and eventually database if needed but I doubt it is) to any web server I want (I think you can upload from iWeb to anything? Not necessary MobileMe?)
You can upload to anything you want using iWeb, whether it is just to a directory or using FTP to a remote Web server anywhere.
I know there was a guide for how to set up a FreeBSD server as a .mac account but I don't think it has been updated for long.
I don't understand why you would do this. What is the benefit over using services not posing as Apple's service?
IMHO 99 dollars was expensive. And considering how much Apple machines cost + what iLife cost I think they could had offered it for free as an "Apple advantage"...
I agree, but then neither of us has access to the numbers. I think they'd be better off trying to include it as an expense that drives hardware adoption and it would be a lot more popular and become more of a differentiator as well as giving Apple leverage when they wanted interoperability with other Web services (ala, we have tens of millions of users on our service, want to seamlessly connect to them Facebook?).
...it's _NEEDED_ for some things it shouldn't be needed for.
What?
I don't see the adoption of something by a dictator as a great endorsement.
I don't care about celebrity or anti-celebrity endorsements. I care about real world effects upon the stagnant and broken desktop OS market. Charles Manson wore Levis jeans, that's not a reason for me to avoid them.
And I am certain that the code in theirs own repository will contain some kind of monitoring system of some sort that will report back to today's KGB
It's called the FSB now, and they may well insert backdoors in code they contribute or in a fork. Of course, we can always audit the code (and our security agencies will for any we use) and you can compile your own Linux distro and be largely compatible with their systems. This is nice because it opens up innovation and moves a large group of users to both open code and open protocols, making it easier to interoperate and more profitable to develop for Linux.
This isn't being done because Putin believes in the GNU manifesto or the free software hippy fest, but purely for no other reason than cheapness.
What's wrong with that? Cheapness and efficiency are big parts of the "GNU manifesto" with enlightened self interest on the part of the users being key.
This is highly likely going to be a proprietary fork just like Google does with their internal Ubuntu distro.
Again, I don't see the problem. Google finds it cost effective to contribute back most of their changes because then they are incorporated into the main code base and the burden for maintaining a fork is greatly lessened. Realistically, I don't even see that Russia needs a fork or how it would benefit them. For Google, they like having a performance leg up for massively parrallel computing. Russia though, they mostly want servers and desktops and don't need a performance leg up. Likely they'll implement some proprietary applications, maybe even a security module or something, but for the most part there isn't a benefit to not giving the changes back and there is a cost.
With the backing of Putin, could this be the breakthrough free software has been waiting for?
I am pretty sure that Putin don't care about the freedom part of free software
Why is that? Putin is acting on behalf of the government who are primarily users, not developers of software they hope to sell. The 'freedom" part is freedom for him, and brings real benefits to him and his, like the ability to gain free code contributions from others around the world and the ability to comparison shop when looking at vendors for support and the like. Any code generated by the government will likely cost less in the long run if they contribute it back rather than maintaining a fork.
So really, while we may not see a pile of code contributions as a result of this, more adoption means more motivation to support it for hardware vendors and more motivation for application developers and tool creators to target it. And really, lack of momentum and market share is one of the biggest problems for OSS, a chicken and egg scenario.
Sorry, I didn't see your numbers - "sociologists" is plural, is that your data?
My point is there is no scientific evidence to support the causative hypothesis because there is no correlation as shown by any scientific study. If you want I can point you to some meta studies that summarize hundreds of different studies of gun control around the world, or studies of murder and violent crime rates and listings of gun laws around the world. What you're asking for is like asking for scientific evidence that there isn't a flying spaghetti monster controlling reality. The default state is "no" unless you can find evidence for something, there is no reason a scientist or rational person would have that belief.
There're two ways to demonstrate this scientifically, given the number of factors: * Equalize the US to Switzerland, in all possible ways. From the diet, to the climate, and of course the economy - and of course lowering the gun ownership ratio. * Abolishing guns on the US for 10 years, and see how it goes.
Scientifically, you can make useful predictions, like "if we institute strict gun control measures in a location, violent crime will decrease". Then you wait and look at what happens when that is the case and see if it's true a large enough percent of the time to be more than random chance. So far, no one has been able to show that. They have been able to show that the weapons used seem to change, but not an actual decrease in murder or violent crime in general.
You don't have to perform an experiment with the entire US. It's like saying the only way to prove condoms reduce teen pregnancy rates is to ban condoms throughout the world and see what happens.
If you support your own claims, you should be defending prohibition, at least to see whether it works. For science.
You seem to be mistaking me for an idiotic scientist who cannot extrapolate trends nor apply general cases to specific situations. It didn't seem to work anywhere it's been tried, but the only way to test scientifically is to try it again by passing laws that reduce freedom? That's shit logic.
In the meantime, the US still has the highest
Yes, we do have the highest... stoner in the world, his name is "Randy" and he likes Led Zeppelin.
Assuming you're going to argue that the US has the highest murder rates per capita or some such, well are rates are very high, but then our wealth disparity is very high, we have a huge addictive substance prohibition creating a crime war on our streets, we don't have anywhere near the social safety nets most first world countries do nor the same level of debt forgiveness for the destitute so we have a lot of desperate people. We have rapidly declining education rates, which haven't been even average for a while. We have the elderly and sick literally murdering their mail carriers so they can live in a nice prison and get healthcare instead of having to live on the streets. We treat drug addiction as a criminal problem instead of a medical one, don't have free treatment, and do send nonviolent offenders to prison where they contribute to one of the highest rates of incarceration in any country and where prisoners are not rehabilitated but are repeatedly raped, introduced to other criminals, taught violent behavior, abused by authority figures, then let back onto the streets.
On top of all this, whenever the problems of violence in our society are raised half the politicians loudly yell about how we need to ban guns, despite there being no evidence this will work. The other half yell about how we shouldn't ban guns and how we should incarcerate more people for longer periods and execute more people. And no one is willing to look at the real scientific body of evidence as to what actually does reduce violent crime within a society, despite, these measures having worked in dozens of other countries because apparently the only difference most people seem
You said that Switzerland and Sweden had "very high rates" of gun ownership, and then pointed out that they have low crime rates. The "height" of those rates, compared with US, is either half or one third.
True, if you measure it by number of firearms, but most sociologists do not. Rather they measure number of households with a firearm as a better measure of access as it somewhat irons out all those people with hundreds of firearms in a collection; and which do not meaningfully change access to them.
The rates are too different to apply the status to one end to the other. For example, it could happen that there's a "threshold" from which the crime rate dramatically starts increasing - say, 60%.
You could hypothesize that, but a hypothesis with no supporting evidence is not a scientifically supported hypothesis. It's just an idea that has not been tested in any way. Just because you form a hypothesis does not mean it is rational to believe that hypothesis.
Then you said that UK had a "very high rates of violent crime and murder". I just pointed out that they were not that high, at least in the murder case, and specially compared with the US rates.
Of course they aren't, nor would any sociologist expect them to be. One can predict rates of murder and violent crime based upon criteria that do show correlations across many countries. Look at the gini coefficient for the UK (34ish) compared to the US (45ish). With that much difference in wealth disparity there's going to be a huge difference in murder rate. Then add in socialized healthcare and drug addiction treatment programs, both of which make a significant difference.
You see if you want to support the hypothesis that gun control laws make a difference, you have to show a correlation that persists after you normalize for other known correlations. Then you have to show that this holds up as a correlation across a large data set, not just two or four countries.
Basically, I think you have an opinion, an idea that has NO scientific basis. So you're trying to find support for your opinion by trying to interpret incomplete and cherry picked statistics; because thats easier than forming a new opinion based upon the scientific evidence that has actually been collected to date. That is not the scientific method. That is not logical or rational. It's just irrational belief with pseudo-science to try to lend it credibility. It's about as rational and supported as young earth creationism.
Your retort sounds eerily similar to the 'if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide' chanters. Or, 'you conspiracy theorists are such nutters'.
You'll have to be more specific in your comparison. You see, the first phrase you cite is important because it refers to an argument that sidesteps civil rights, by trying to distract from the issue by trying to point to the number of people most affected will be small, as if that were relevant. As for conspiracy theorists... most are nutters. The reason conspiracy theories are considered dubious in general is because they require multiple disparate people to be secretly conspiring to hide a truth. For example, there are people that believe that all scientists and teachers are conspiring to lie to them about evolution because those people are secretly satanists. That's pretty crazy. Similarly, many theories require all news agencies to be conspiring together or all pilots t be conspiring or some such. It's simply so unlikely, those theories are easily dismissed by most rational people.
The EFF have identified an issue and provided scenarios of why this may be unwanted.
They identified an issue, but instead of documenting the real cases of abuse, like listing what hardware/software is hiding data in everything they print, they make up theoretical scenarios about what a company could possibly do in the future if they abuse technology they haven't even implemented yet, without any consideration for motivation. They do this because they want press to draw attention, but they're making a "boy who cried wolf" situation where you read their concerns, see that they're talking about theoretical possibilities and there is no motivation for the average person to do much of anything.
Even if you are so lacking in vision that you cannot see the danger from the described scenario, surely you can draw references from past events. How many times has it already transpired that something such as this was put in place only to have it misused by someone in a position of authority or for marketing purposes?
Umm, occasionally, but not very often., certainly not by companies who worry about pissing off their customers.
Furthermore, if there is a benefit to the consumer, why is that fact hidden rather than advertised as a feature? ? What's the consumer benefit to printing serial numbers or other identifiers(yellow dots) on every printed page that comes out of a printer?
I don't see that there is much benefit to that, which is why I think the EFF should have concentrated on that issue, instead of going off about GPS coordinates being tagged on photos, when there is consumer benefit and there has not been any instances of abuse recorded... ever that I've seen.
The fact is that these "features" are regularly added to these devices without the knowledge or consent of the consumer.
The only feature of this I know of is the printers. Everything else is advertised as a feature. My phone advertises that it can add GPS coordinates to pictures and it asks in the UI if I want to do it. It can be remotely disabled, and it advertises that as a feature, and as far as I know there has never been a reported instances of that feature being abused instead of applied by users to protect their data.
The fact that you lack vision doesn't mean that the problem or, at the very least, the potential of the problem doesn't exist.
It's not that I don't see potential for problems, it's just that I don't get upset about just potential. I don't want people warning me about potential problems, I want people letting me know about real problems and helping to draw attention to that. The EFF managed to water down the issue and make it seem like they are just getting hysterical about things that are just their pet theories. I don't get too worked up about biometric features potentially being added to my devices for theft control and potentially being abused, maybe, if they are ever implemented. Its hard to take the hysterics of others over it seriously and it just makes them look like alarmists.
Apple's iPhones know where you are when you use the maps and Apple can gather that data and use it to launch missiles at you! Adobe Photoshop can use the GPS data encoded into your photos and send that info to the CIA who will visit those places and scrawl lewd graffiti about your sexuality in all the nearby bathrooms, thus ruining your reputation in the locality and preventing you from being elected to political office!
This would be a lot more of a story if they actually cited some real misuse of data instead of just making claims about the evils that could hypothetically be committed using data that is otherwise kinda useful for the end user. I mean, seriously, it can collect biometric data for identification and store it if it fails as a way to identify who tried to use a device? How is that not something I want my devices to do to identify thieves and people trying to break the security of my systems? No, I don't want some company collecting biometric info on me and using it to track me for advertising or policing purposes, but unless there's actual evidence of such abuse, well it's not much of a story.
Trying to shoot a bear with a handgun would be the most idiotic thing you can do. It would only drive the bear mad.
Sigh. You shouldn't make assertions if you don't know what you're talking about. First, there are several types of bear in the US and second, there are suitable handgun calibers for shooting any of them in an emergency. .50 caliber handguns are very common among linemen in Alaska because they need something small enough to carry up a telephone pole, but big enough to kill a grizzly bear that is climbing up the pole after them. For black bear, many common self defense calibers are large enough to kill one and many bear bow hunters carry one for just that purpose.
For the rest, I was just providing contradicting data to hypothesis that you have formulated and I don't defend.
I guess what i'm asking is, how does that data contradict my hypothesis? It doesn't show correlation between gun control laws and violent crime or murder. Also your assertion that the whole world agrees, seems weird when you then post numbers of murders for countries with very lax gun control, countries with very low violent crime rates. I can only assume you were guessing that the data you cited would support your opinions if it were paired with information on gun control laws?
What are you trying to say?
You can almost always run away from a knife (throwing knifes effectively is very difficult), but it is almost impossible to outrun a bullet, so it is not the same logic.
Since we're talking about perceived and real threats, the logic is exactly the same. You must be completely misinterpreting my last post. Your assertions about the lethality of a particular weapon are fairly immaterial, especially since scientific evidence seems to indicate strict gun control laws don't make you any more likely to be murdered. The issue is that some people perceive a threat, and the previous poster claimed that was justification for bans on that perceived threat not being a restriction on freedom. Your unscientific perception about a different weapon is not relevant.
And it's not just the Spanish people, it's pretty much the whole developed world. The US is the minority there.
While I think number of households with a firearm is a better metric, that's not really the point? If there is a correlation, why isn't it showing up? Shouldn't Switzerland have a higher murder rate than the UK and Spain, for example? That it does not, and when you attempt to correlate across a large number of countries, I think pretty much everyone has to admit, it does not support the hypothesis that there is a significant causative relationship; especially when you look at other societal factors and see such dramatic correlations.
You want to know what the violent crime rate is an a country, tell me where it falls on Gini Coefficient for wealth disparity and it's easy to predict with reasonable accuracy. You don't even have to tell me what country it is.
Dude, the guy carrying a gun around is the one that is afraid.
Quite likely, many who carry guns do so out of fear. Some small portion probably have a good, and rational reason to do so. But that is all beside the point that the poster's fear of guns (his mention not mine) does not make a restriction on firearms a freedom or a conflict of freedoms. And that's okay. Many restrictions on freedom are justified and beneficial to society. I don't really see that this one is, or can be demonstrated to be scientifically, but I'm certainly open to someone who wants to present a rational case otherwise.
And it's not just the Spanish people, it's pretty much the whole developed world. The US is the minority there.
Argumentum ad populum?
There are plenty of countries with lax gun laws and very high rates of gun ownership in the first world (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland). These countries also have very low crime rates. There are countries with strict gun control laws and even knife control laws (Great Britain) but very high rates of violent crime and murder, relative to most of their neighboring countries. This suggests to me, and most sociologists, that gun laws do not have a significant causative effect upon violent crime and that passing laws to seriously restrict gun ownership is mostly the politics of appearing to do something, rather than a useful measure to actually reduce violent crime.
The government did not decide that people in my country shouldn't carry fire arms, the people decided that, on account of them being dangerous...
When people decide something, that's freedom. When people pass laws to enforce something for all people, that's government and it is a restriction not a freedom. That's not to say all restrictions on freedom are bad or unjust.
As for how dangerous they are, certainly they are used by criminals, and by suicides, and in accidental deaths... just like many things are. Cars, backyard pools, many things are very dangerous. Freedom is when people decide individually and choose. As for use in commission of crimes, while gun control laws reduce availability of firearms to criminals it's unclear that laws regarding guns actually reduce overall murder or violent crime rates more than they encourage murder and violent crime by making for a less even state between criminals and law abiding citizens. To date, there seems to be little correlation between the two, with murder and violent crime rates incredibly high and low in places with similar gun ownership and gun laws.
One does not need to live in a city to be safe from wildlife that wish to eat you.
You're never safe from wildlife that wishes to eat you, some of it is just very small and hard to shoot. My point is, it is important to consider the lifestyles of others and not try to take away the freedom of others to choose unless you can demonstrate a need (credible scientific evidence that restricting freedom brings benefit).
Of course I'm being defensive, you're the one with the gun buddy...
Because I'm going to shoot you over the internet? Or because you feel threatened when your opinons and reasoning are challenged?
...but may I point out that some people may decide that "deem necessary" has a broader meaning than carrying your piece through the woods full of things that like to eat you.
Absolutely. My question for you is, can you demonstrate logically and with scientific evidence that they are wrong? I know people who carry firearms all the time. One of them killed someone, right after that someone shot two other people with an illegally owned firearm. Who are you to say it was wrong for my acquaintance to carry a firearm, seeing as it likely saved at least one person's life while taking away that of a criminal? What about the 110 pound woman who is proficient in firearms after having been trained in the military, and is being stalked by a large, violent ex-boyfriend who has already assaulted her? Are you sure you think it is "right" and "just" for you to decide on her behalf that she should not carry a firearm when she goes to work?
My point is, freedom is the default state. Freedom is rights and responsibility in the hands of individuals and you need some pretty convincing data before I'm willing to agree that taking that freedom away from individuals is the correct choice for society.
Continuing from the previous point, perhaps my insulting of you and your people was jumping the gun a little, and I apologize for being a little trigger happy.
I accept your apology and appreciate you willingness to engage in civil discourse on the topic. Most people are so emotionally invested in these topics conversation degrades rapidly.
You, sir, are a fucking idiot.
You can always tell someone is intelligent and about to make a persuasive logical argument when they start their comment with an emotionally based attack on the person they are responding to.
I don't need to have hours of nitpicking discussion about what is and isn't a murder, followed by your ridiculous home break-in axe murderer bullshit scenario
If you don't understand the difference between a "bullshit scenario" and an example that demonstrates a flaw in logic, maybe we should just stop the conversation here. You don't seem too interested in "logic" and crazy ideas like that, except as a talking point appeal to imagined authority (ala logic says you're a stupid head). Here's a hint, calling a logical example "bullshit", not answering the question, then ignoring the implications does not do anything to bolster your argument.
situation with guns involved more often escalates to death, than one with knives or sticks and stones, and that gunshot wounds more often, by their nature, create fatal injuries.
Really? That's a "fact" is it? You have a study to prove it? I ask because in Brazil they have fairly low gun ownership but very high murder and serious injury rates from drive by pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. Are guns are more likely to escalate to death than pipe bombs?
It's very nice of you to cite a study and all, but I don't see the relevance. That doesn't show any correlation with gun control laws. It for some reason misses Sweden but it does include Switzerland, with one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world (government issues rifles for the most part) and yet one of the lowest murder rates. I guess I don't see how this proves your hypothesis that guns cause higher rates of murder.
Yes, you can question the "reliability" of the underlying methods to hell freezes over.
This is called a "straw man argument". You should really look into that whole "informal logic" discipline, not just for winning arguments but for making rational decisions. It could change your life.
But that chart doesn't include the 40,000 plus deaths per year, that occur because your so called "freedom" results in children shooting other children in the US.
Certainly, firearm ownership does result in significant accidental death, among adults and children as well as higher rates of successful suicide (which I consider a positive as I believe in a right to death but many disagree). That said, backyard pools are more than an order of magnitude more likely to result in the accidental death of a child than firearm ownership in a home. Need they be banned as well? Are they an unacceptable freedom? Are you to make that decision on behalf of all parents?
Think of it this way. If I had a gun, and you were standing in front of me, I'd be sorely tempted to use it to put you out of my misery-- that's my freedom. Are you saying you'd like someone to "restrict" it?
If you truly lack that level of self control, then yes you have a mental problem and are not responsible enough to own a firearm, which hopefully you would realize, but if not, hopefully the state would. But then, you don't have a right to kill other people you disagree with. That's covered by laws called "murder".
Yeah right. You're logically inconsistent blather.
I'm blather? I'm afraid I must disagree. I'm a human, one with some small understanding of informal logic and the scientific method; mental tools I apply to determine things and present them in a consistent and logical fashion. You note I address each of your points and reply to all of your questions. This is called the "rhetorical debate" method that sometimes actually leads to a productive conversation. Please actually address my points if you reply and do try to refrain from emotional outbursts and name calling. They make you seem like a juvenile, semi-hysterical jackass.
I was referring more to carrying a gun in every day life when you don't need it...
No, you were writing about the "freedom" of Americans to decide when they needed to carry a firearm instead of it being decided for them by the government. I know this because you wrote:
"Being able to carry a gun is one of the truly dumbest "freedoms" you Americans have."
Perhaps you intended to write something else, but you didn't. Maybe you need to slow down and spend a little more time thinking and composing before posting.
As for having a clue, I would wager I have more of a clue than you, as my choice of place to live does not involve a walk through 1.2 km of forest full of things that want to eat me, but to each their own.
Not all of us are as risk averse as you. As you write, to each their own. That's freedom.
Finally, killing off all dangerous wildlife in the world would certainly be a herculean task, but perhaps we can start with the gun wielding hicks such as yourself, and move on from there.
Getting a bit defensive are we? Do you really need to resort to personal attacks and cultural slurs like "hick"? Is your argument really so weak? Oh, yeah, it is. You've referred to me as "dumb" for valuing my freedom to carry a firearm when I deem necessary and a hick, for choosing not live in a city, packed like sardines in a can. Then you say maybe people like me should be killed. It sounds like you have some real mental problems. Your ego is very fragile and easily threatened if you have to lash out so readily. Perhaps you should see a counselor about low self esteem and xenophobia.
Being able to carry a gun is one of the truly dumbest "freedoms" you Americans have. You can keep it.
Try living in my old place and walking a 3/4 of a mile through woods full of bear every morning and evening to get to your car. Then you can tell me how "dumb" it is that you're free to carry a firearm. Do you even think a little bit about the fact that not everyone lives the same lifestyle you do, in the same environment? Or would you prefer we simply kill off all dangerous wildlife in the world? Perhaps you prefer people are not allowed to travel in areas with dangerous wildlife? Really do you have a clue at all?
Hmm. Did you bother to check gun deaths in Europe vs. gun deaths in the Untied States, before speaking? I didn't think so.
You apparently didn't bother to think much at all. Do take a look at violent crime and murders in Europe and South America, and North America and everywhere else, by country and even legal jurisdiction. Notice a correlation between those numbers and gun control laws? No? Gee neither does anyone else. Sweden, for example has very liberal gun control laws and high rates of ownership, but some of the lowest rates of murder and violent crime in the world. There are, however, many very good correlations with murder and violent crime, wealth disparity being one of the most stark.
And while we're at it, lets talk about "gun deaths". Where did this absurd term come from? It's an intentional logical misstatement of the problem invented by people who could not show a correlation between gun laws and murder and violent crime. So they play some statistical games and come up with numbers that at first blush as read by a layman seem to show what they wish was happening.
Scenario that demonstrates the logical misstatement:
Case 1, strict gun control laws in effect. An axe murderer broke into a home today and chopped up twelve children and three adults. Analysis using "gun crime" - 0 gun deaths yay! analysis using violent crime and murder as the problem - 15 murders.
Case 2, lax gun control laws in effect. An axe murderer broke into a home today and was shot at by the homeowner who then chased the psycho out into the street and shot him. Analysis using either "gun crime" or violent crime and murder as the problem - 1 manslaughter.
So, you really think a problem statement that results in the above, hypothetical, effect of gun control laws effectively helps society make proper choices? You think people are happier having been killed by an axe? When you come at problems with such a wrongheaded idea, you clearly cannot make a reasonable determination of what effective action is. As such, any study of "gun crime" statistics can be immediately trashed.
There's a clear urban/rural split in how gun rights affect people. In the cities, we want people to not have guns, because gangs use them to shoot at each other and everyone else. In rural areas, people with guns can use them to protect themselves.
No one in urban areas use guns to protect themselves? No one in rural areas uses them for crimes? I think it has more to do with cultural, politically ingrained beliefs, and a culture of hunting than it does any real difference in crime.
So please don't include me in the "we" on whose behalf you speak. Regardless of laws, criminals will get guns and other weapons and commit acts of violence. Laws restricting gun ownership make little difference to these numbers but a whole lot of very controllable factors do. Rather than making political points on either side and continuing a pointless, time wasting debate, we should be looking at the real solutions, most of which are a lot harder than another quick but useless gun control law. We should be looking at what works in other countries, even ones with very lax gun control laws and high gun ownership. Provide free addiction treatment; treat drug addiction as a medical problem, not a crime; reduce overall wealth disparity; provide social safety nets for the poor, sick, and elderly; remove laws that prevent bankruptcies from forgiving ALL the debt of the destitute; reduce prison populations and sentencing for nonviolent crimes and for people with low recidivism profiles; clean up the prisons so they aren't places where people go to become mentally unstable, unsuitable for society, and more proficient at crime and connected to criminals, but are instead actual rehabilitation. All of these things work other places, they're just hard and expensive and require we alter our perspectives on whether we're more interested in hurting those who have done wrong or making our society a better, less violent place.
And this is noteworthy why?
Because a significant number of people on Slashdot are security geeks and enjoy learning about exploits, or are sysadmins that manage at least some machines where the users can get to IE.