but for all practical purposes is useless outside of the iTMS walled garden.
What are you talking about? How is it useless? It plays on pretty much every modern software and hardware music player made. It plays on the frickin' Zune. Zen, Archos, Sansa, Sony, even the PSP. Songbird, Mplayer, WMP, and everything else I can think of.
Seriously, back in the day before anyone but Apple used it, it was a valid argument to say you wanted to use the more compatible.mp3 instead of the more efficient.mp4, but now I wonder what you're using that it isn't compatible with.
I was speculating that most [other] Win+Mac games' Wine compatibility could stem from their usage of Transgaming's Cider engine.
Certainly there are a fair number of games that make use of it, but I don't think it would be the majority. For one, Cider has only been in use for about 3-4 years, whereas Mac games have been increasing in number for much longer than that. It is sort of a double edged sword in the Mac market, making it easier for some companies to make cross platform games, but at the same time moving some franchises that used to do proper ports to less functional, poorer performing (quick and dirty) ports that encourage the use of Windows specific technologies and discourage the use of open standard alternatives. An example would be the Sims, which released every version for Mac and PC at the same time, with native ports, until the most recent version which they just did a Cider-based port.
I've never been asked to swear an oath of religious principle. I do say the scout oath once a week - I swear to do my duty to god.
And you don't see the implicit statement in such an oath that there exist a god? And not just a god, but a being referred to as "god" instead of a god, meaning all polytheists and atheists are asked to forswear their beliefs in making such a statement.
Belief is not required.
But statement implying belief. I'm not demonizing the BSA or members, I'm just saying as an organization promoting religion the government cannot be part of that either by providing aid or preferential treatment. If you want government aid, work to change the BSA's policies or splinter from the main organization.
You have to remember that the BSA is a very loosely organized group. The national office can spout whatever BS they like; they still rely upon people like me to interpret and implement.
Of course, but it doesn't matter if some members interpret things differently. If those subgroups don't split off and form their own organization, the government cannot support them because they are part of an organization that promotes some religions over others.
But Wikipedia isn't strictly accurate either. Buddhism [scouting.org] is an accepted "religion" within scouting but is also nontheistic.
Well, the core of buddhism certainly is, but there are many variations some of which are quite theistic. In any case, requiring a buddhist to swear to a god, means pretending at least to accept a theistic belief. So it makes it no less of a problem.
The typical few million $s the feds give the BSA is more than worth the more than 700 million $s that Scouts give back to the community in volunteer work every year.
If it were a contract with a for profit, I might agree with you. It is not though. It is the federal government endorsing an organization that promotes specific religions. That's unconstitutional.
I'm sorry that you find that their moral stance on a basic belief in a higher power and that Homosexuality shouldn't be supported in an organization that has cross cultural responsibility from first grade on objectionable, but that, IMHO is not enough for the feds to stop their support.
This isn't about my personal tastes, it's about upholding one of the foundational concepts of our democracy... that the government should stay out of religion, not promoting, including providing resources to any specific religion or group that promotes particular religions over others. The government should not be giving money to charitable groups that only allow muslims as members either, not to a cookery group that accepts anyone who isn't a Hindi.
BTW - Belief in a "higher" power, referred to as "God" in their promise and law is just that. Christian, Jew, Muslim and Buddhists all not only have members, but full chartered groups within the BSA.
But it is a religious prerequisite to membership, which excludes them from being able to receive aid of any form from the government. It's the law and an important law at that.
Well either way - I didn't know each app ran in a sandbox on the iPhone. If thats true - why the security fuss?
Because you'd have to run every app in it's own JVM to sandbox java apps (performance nightmare). As for the code signing, suppose someone uses the jailbreak program disguised as a different app and combined with a malicious payload. Jailbreak works by exploiting flaws in the sandbox. That's why the additional layer of security allowing Apple to revoke the keys is important.
Adobe does not publish numbers, but the principal project manager for Photoshop made a statement in 2008 that OS X accounted for approximately 50% of Photoshop sales.
Why couldn't you (Sun/Adobe) just write a patch file that blocks known apps or functions from running?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. For one thing, the iPhone sandboxes all apps from one another for security and stability. How do you do that within a JVM? And are you talking about making a blacklist on the JVM itself to try to prevent certain code from running, rather than using the whitelist model all other apps in the store use?
My dictionary says: open-source - adjective - Computing denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available.
"Free Software" is used to imply no cost software...
Actually there are two meanings for that term because the word "free" has two meanings in English (libre vs. gratis).
I can buy a Wii and install whatever I want on it if I can figure out how it works without agreeing to any software 'license' they attempt to tack on to it (or bypass the software portion entirely).
It's amusing that you think that's the security model. Why would such malware exist when Apple approves the apps and distributes them?
Because Apple engineers cannot catch every trojan submitted. And I think that's Apple's security model because that's what they presented in their whitepapers. If that isn't their security model then why did they go to all the trouble to create a signing framework when they knew it would not stop the devices from being jailbroken? Apple controls the distribution, so why the keys?
No, the reason for the model is so that Apple can tightly control the competition.
What competition? Other phone makers? How does this control them? Define your terms already.
Alternative runtimes prevent that so they are not allowed.
Alternative runtimes not only break Apple's security model but the put the available feature set and performance of applications behind a bottleneck that Apple does not control. It's just good business to not allow other companies to be able to reduce the capability of your product. I don't see what it has to do with competition though.
Open source: Nobody restricts where you can install the application, and you get the source code too -- the best situation.
No, that's not accurate. Open source just means the source is open to be viewed. It may well be patented or covered by copyright law that restricts any given person from using it in a given application. The name given to open source software with protections that make sure anyone can use the source is "free software" and the distinction is important. The idea that no one restricts where you can install open source is also flawed. Firefox is open source but Nintendo restricts me from installing it on my Wii. (Okay I don't really own a Wii, but you get the point).
I'm sure Oracle would be happy to play on the iPhone if Apple allowed them even if it meant building in a way to lock out Java apps and I'm sure there would be a way to do it.
You could run a separate JVM for every app, but that would kill performance right quick. I just don't see the advantage to adding Java apps other than a bunch of quick and dirty and probably poor performing apps built for other platforms and then customized to sort of work with the iPhone's hardware and interface.
After all if you want to with Apple's tools you have to work on a mac. I'm sure there is a way to develop for the iphone without a mac but the easiest and best option is to buy the overpriced Mac. I think that is what Apple doesn't want to give up.
I don't think iPhone developers ar significantly driving Mac sales. According to Wired magazine iPhone developers are in high demand with 140 new positions a month. Now lets say there are twice that many when you count people dabbling and let's assume they all buy a new Mac every year. That's about 900 Mac sales a quarter. Apple sold more than 2,800,000 Macs last quarter. You really think Apple is making major platform decisions about the money making iPhone platform based upon the idea of selling a thousandth of a percent more Mac computers?
So, we'll get a full version of Opera for the iPhone any day now?
Opera is an application that can view the Web, not the Web itself. Jobs actually has a very good point. Being able to view a video or read a page should not be dependent upon if you are using a phone, desktop, game console, or any other device, and the only way we can do that is adherence to open and interoperable standards on the Web. If Apple is using it's closed and popular phone to push that agenda, I say, "FUCK YEAH!". I don't have to buy an iPhone, but I do have to use the Web. He can keep the iPhone as locked down as he wants so long as he supports open standards and does not have monopoly influence on the market.
Adobe CS 6 - Now available for Windows 7, Linux...and that's it. In other news Shantanu Narayen is fired from Adobe as sales tank now that over half the install base can't get the new version of CS without buying a new computer. What a bone head eh Debrah... now on to the weather.
Java is open and proven in the mobile space and Apple (or anyone) could ensure the JVM used is up to date and allows the use of any new features or hardware.
It breaks the security model. Right now someone writes malware for the iPhone, Apple finds out, revokes the keys and the malware goes away except on phones it managed to jailbreak. It stops spreading and we move on. If Java apps are allowed in the JVM then, Apple has to revoke all Java apps and they all stop working the first time someone writes a Java-based malware.
Now take the same concern and apply it to multitasking etc. and add in the fact that every time Apple adds a feature they have to update the JVM to work with it as well as their normal APIs. Apple does not want to go back to maintaining their own fork of the JVM like they used to do for the desktop.
The A-prefix means not. Theism refers to the belief in a religious entity. So how do you include a non-religion in your list of religions? That's like calling Scientology scientific discipline.
Actually, he never refers to Atheism as a religion and it is entirely appropriate to include it in this conversation as it is about religious discrimination. The government is forbidden from promoting religion, and that includes promoting groups that discriminate against people with no religion.
Any boy that meets the age requirements can join scouting. There is no discrimination there.
This is not quite true. Fact check from Wikipedia:
The Boy Scouts of America's position is that atheists and agnostics cannot participate as Scouts (youth members) or Scouters (adult leaders). According to the Bylaws of the BSA, Declaration of Religious Principle:
"The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members."
During the membership application process and as a requirement to obtain membership, youths and adults are required to subscribe to the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle and to agree to abide by the Scout Oath and Law, which include the words, "do my duty to God" and "reverent". Youths are also required to repeat the Scout Oath and Law periodically after being accepted as Scouts. The BSA believes that atheists and agnostics are not appropriate role models of the Scout Oath and Law for boys, and thus will not accept such adults as leaders.[4]
New graphic drivers for Nvidia - maybe they will be less crappy or even good?
Boot speed improvements - meh who reboots anymore?
Me Menu- Facebook, Digg, Twitter and chat integrated into the OS - hmm, this might be useful. I'll have to give it a shot.
Ubuntu One Cloud Computing - nice idea, not sure how useful it is with only a few gig of storage unless you pay.
Ubuntu One Music Store- Nice iTunes Music Store clone, but with the ability to re-download to different devices.
Ubuntu Software Centre 2.0 - I have high hopes for this. The consolidation is nice and should have happened long ago, but the app store for commercial apps is not slated until Maverick Meerkat.
So it looks like solid improvement for the most part, nothing really revolutionary, but solid.
Discrimination exists. There is a reason for it these days.
Umm, okay. I'm not even going to address this.
Also what is wrong with organizations using facilities for free?
It is illegal favoritism. Other organizations are not allowed use of the same facilities for free.
Did they not help pay for it with their taxes?
No, the BSA is a not for profit that does not pay taxes. More importantly though, why should some taxpayers be forced to pay utility costs and upkeep fees for facilities that are incurred by an organization that bans their children from joining? If the BSA allowed anyone to join, then I would have a lot less of a problem letting them use government facilities, but when they exclude some citizens, that nixes it for me.
Are you not being discriminatory yourself?
No because I'm proposing equal access to all people based upon the criteria of nondiscrimination in the constitution. The government is forbidden from providing favoritism based upon certain criteria including religion. That extends to providing extra perks to private organizations that discriminate on that basis. You do remember the constitution don't you?
I think the government exists to help people...
Which it can do by providing free facilities to organizations that follow the guidelines necessary for it to do so legally. The government is not allowed to promote any religion and spending taxpayer dollars subsidizing an organization that does promote specific religions, certainly qualifies.
I can see the difference between a group of kids getting together with their parents and a rock band playing at a public arena.
What about a rock band that does not allow Christians to attend? Are you okay with that? What about a club using the public park for the day, but not letting white people in the park that day because whites cannot join said club?
They did something like that with a local park I used to go to when I grew up.
Sorry, your anecdote does not apply. The government charging fees for thing is one thing. How would you feel if that same park had started charging fees, but only to registered members of the republican party? That's what we're talking about, unequal treatment for groups based upon criteria specifically forbidden by federal law to be used as criteria for unequal treatment by the government. It's entirely the BSA's choice to discriminate based upon those criteria and that is what makes them ineligible for government benefits; the same as the KKK, Neo Nazis, and the Black Panthers.
Citation? I've seen rulings in specific countries in the EU that say users can reject an EULA after a purchase and return the part of the purchase to which the EULA applies. I have not seen any ruling binding in the whole of the EU that makes EULA's non-binding.
In the US and EU, courts have found specific portions of EULAs to be unenforcable, but I haven't seen anything making them non-binding in general.
Yes, they discriminate against people based upon religion and sexual orientation. I have no problem with a private organization doing either, but they should not be eligible for government funding or freebies like they have been getting.
Government funding? I don't think so.
Here is a list of a few dozen instances where they've lost government aid in various court cases. Mostly it was a case of being allowed to use public facilities free of charge. It includes the cities of Philadelphia and Berkley and the states of Illinois and Oregon in the US. There are still many city and state governments providing assistance to the BSA despite it being illegal favoritism. Sadly too many people in the US are in favor of discrimination against gays and non-christians so politicians are unwilling to do anything about it.
Seriously, assault rifles have point-and-click interfaces. Guns are ridiculously easy to operate.
That's actually quite funny. Watching someone load and fire an AR-15 for the first time is usually amusing. Will they figure out how to cock it? Will they open the ejection port? And then there's the whole thing about actually aiming and hitting a target. Back in my day, the BSA had a merit badge for rifle and shotgun marksmanship that was a wee bit more applicable.
That's taught by, you know, the non-video game part of being a cub scout.
I actually quit the boy scouts as a kid because we didn't do any scouting. Showing up to every meeting and going to clean parks and talk about the evils of drugs wasn't my thing. I actually liked to spend my time out in the woods, hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, etc. Our troop did very little of such things, however, and I quickly lost interest.
I'm still trying to figure out why a bunch of people who obviously loath Apple products spend so much time discussing them.
Because HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba are doing so little of interest. Microsoft too, to some extent. When was the last time Lenovo made real progress towards pressuring the industry to move towards standards compliant protocols and file formats?
Slashdot Mirror
but for all practical purposes is useless outside of the iTMS walled garden.
What are you talking about? How is it useless? It plays on pretty much every modern software and hardware music player made. It plays on the frickin' Zune. Zen, Archos, Sansa, Sony, even the PSP. Songbird, Mplayer, WMP, and everything else I can think of.
Seriously, back in the day before anyone but Apple used it, it was a valid argument to say you wanted to use the more compatible .mp3 instead of the more efficient .mp4, but now I wonder what you're using that it isn't compatible with.
I was speculating that most [other] Win+Mac games' Wine compatibility could stem from their usage of Transgaming's Cider engine.
Certainly there are a fair number of games that make use of it, but I don't think it would be the majority. For one, Cider has only been in use for about 3-4 years, whereas Mac games have been increasing in number for much longer than that. It is sort of a double edged sword in the Mac market, making it easier for some companies to make cross platform games, but at the same time moving some franchises that used to do proper ports to less functional, poorer performing (quick and dirty) ports that encourage the use of Windows specific technologies and discourage the use of open standard alternatives. An example would be the Sims, which released every version for Mac and PC at the same time, with native ports, until the most recent version which they just did a Cider-based port.
Speaking as an ignostic assistant scoutmaster.
Umm do you perhaps mean agnostic? Gnostic?
I've never been asked to swear an oath of religious principle. I do say the scout oath once a week - I swear to do my duty to god.
And you don't see the implicit statement in such an oath that there exist a god? And not just a god, but a being referred to as "god" instead of a god, meaning all polytheists and atheists are asked to forswear their beliefs in making such a statement.
Belief is not required.
But statement implying belief. I'm not demonizing the BSA or members, I'm just saying as an organization promoting religion the government cannot be part of that either by providing aid or preferential treatment. If you want government aid, work to change the BSA's policies or splinter from the main organization.
You have to remember that the BSA is a very loosely organized group. The national office can spout whatever BS they like; they still rely upon people like me to interpret and implement.
Of course, but it doesn't matter if some members interpret things differently. If those subgroups don't split off and form their own organization, the government cannot support them because they are part of an organization that promotes some religions over others.
But Wikipedia isn't strictly accurate either. Buddhism [scouting.org] is an accepted "religion" within scouting but is also nontheistic.
Well, the core of buddhism certainly is, but there are many variations some of which are quite theistic. In any case, requiring a buddhist to swear to a god, means pretending at least to accept a theistic belief. So it makes it no less of a problem.
The typical few million $s the feds give the BSA is more than worth the more than 700 million $s that Scouts give back to the community in volunteer work every year.
If it were a contract with a for profit, I might agree with you. It is not though. It is the federal government endorsing an organization that promotes specific religions. That's unconstitutional.
I'm sorry that you find that their moral stance on a basic belief in a higher power and that Homosexuality shouldn't be supported in an organization that has cross cultural responsibility from first grade on objectionable, but that, IMHO is not enough for the feds to stop their support.
This isn't about my personal tastes, it's about upholding one of the foundational concepts of our democracy... that the government should stay out of religion, not promoting, including providing resources to any specific religion or group that promotes particular religions over others. The government should not be giving money to charitable groups that only allow muslims as members either, not to a cookery group that accepts anyone who isn't a Hindi.
BTW - Belief in a "higher" power, referred to as "God" in their promise and law is just that. Christian, Jew, Muslim and Buddhists all not only have members, but full chartered groups within the BSA.
But it is a religious prerequisite to membership, which excludes them from being able to receive aid of any form from the government. It's the law and an important law at that.
Just like PCs do, run each Java app in its own JVM instance.
You don't think the performance of doing that would not bring a mobile phone to a slow crawl?
Well either way - I didn't know each app ran in a sandbox on the iPhone. If thats true - why the security fuss?
Because you'd have to run every app in it's own JVM to sandbox java apps (performance nightmare). As for the code signing, suppose someone uses the jailbreak program disguised as a different app and combined with a malicious payload. Jailbreak works by exploiting flaws in the sandbox. That's why the additional layer of security allowing Apple to revoke the keys is important.
I doubt its[sic] half
Adobe does not publish numbers, but the principal project manager for Photoshop made a statement in 2008 that OS X accounted for approximately 50% of Photoshop sales.
Why couldn't you (Sun/Adobe) just write a patch file that blocks known apps or functions from running?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. For one thing, the iPhone sandboxes all apps from one another for security and stability. How do you do that within a JVM? And are you talking about making a blacklist on the JVM itself to try to prevent certain code from running, rather than using the whitelist model all other apps in the store use?
Your distinctions are grossly incorrect.
My dictionary says: open-source - adjective - Computing denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available.
"Free Software" is used to imply no cost software...
Actually there are two meanings for that term because the word "free" has two meanings in English (libre vs. gratis).
I can buy a Wii and install whatever I want on it if I can figure out how it works without agreeing to any software 'license' they attempt to tack on to it (or bypass the software portion entirely).
You've never heard of the DMCA?
It's amusing that you think that's the security model. Why would such malware exist when Apple approves the apps and distributes them?
Because Apple engineers cannot catch every trojan submitted. And I think that's Apple's security model because that's what they presented in their whitepapers. If that isn't their security model then why did they go to all the trouble to create a signing framework when they knew it would not stop the devices from being jailbroken? Apple controls the distribution, so why the keys?
No, the reason for the model is so that Apple can tightly control the competition.
What competition? Other phone makers? How does this control them? Define your terms already.
Alternative runtimes prevent that so they are not allowed.
Alternative runtimes not only break Apple's security model but the put the available feature set and performance of applications behind a bottleneck that Apple does not control. It's just good business to not allow other companies to be able to reduce the capability of your product. I don't see what it has to do with competition though.
His comment on Open Source was perfectly valid.
You mean this comment:
Open source: Nobody restricts where you can install the application, and you get the source code too -- the best situation.
No, that's not accurate. Open source just means the source is open to be viewed. It may well be patented or covered by copyright law that restricts any given person from using it in a given application. The name given to open source software with protections that make sure anyone can use the source is "free software" and the distinction is important. The idea that no one restricts where you can install open source is also flawed. Firefox is open source but Nintendo restricts me from installing it on my Wii. (Okay I don't really own a Wii, but you get the point).
I'm sure Oracle would be happy to play on the iPhone if Apple allowed them even if it meant building in a way to lock out Java apps and I'm sure there would be a way to do it.
You could run a separate JVM for every app, but that would kill performance right quick. I just don't see the advantage to adding Java apps other than a bunch of quick and dirty and probably poor performing apps built for other platforms and then customized to sort of work with the iPhone's hardware and interface.
After all if you want to with Apple's tools you have to work on a mac. I'm sure there is a way to develop for the iphone without a mac but the easiest and best option is to buy the overpriced Mac. I think that is what Apple doesn't want to give up.
I don't think iPhone developers ar significantly driving Mac sales. According to Wired magazine iPhone developers are in high demand with 140 new positions a month. Now lets say there are twice that many when you count people dabbling and let's assume they all buy a new Mac every year. That's about 900 Mac sales a quarter. Apple sold more than 2,800,000 Macs last quarter. You really think Apple is making major platform decisions about the money making iPhone platform based upon the idea of selling a thousandth of a percent more Mac computers?
So, we'll get a full version of Opera for the iPhone any day now?
Opera is an application that can view the Web, not the Web itself. Jobs actually has a very good point. Being able to view a video or read a page should not be dependent upon if you are using a phone, desktop, game console, or any other device, and the only way we can do that is adherence to open and interoperable standards on the Web. If Apple is using it's closed and popular phone to push that agenda, I say, "FUCK YEAH!". I don't have to buy an iPhone, but I do have to use the Web. He can keep the iPhone as locked down as he wants so long as he supports open standards and does not have monopoly influence on the market.
Adobe CS 6 - Now available for Windows 7, Linux...and that's it. In other news Shantanu Narayen is fired from Adobe as sales tank now that over half the install base can't get the new version of CS without buying a new computer. What a bone head eh Debrah... now on to the weather.
Java is open and proven in the mobile space and Apple (or anyone) could ensure the JVM used is up to date and allows the use of any new features or hardware.
It breaks the security model. Right now someone writes malware for the iPhone, Apple finds out, revokes the keys and the malware goes away except on phones it managed to jailbreak. It stops spreading and we move on. If Java apps are allowed in the JVM then, Apple has to revoke all Java apps and they all stop working the first time someone writes a Java-based malware.
Now take the same concern and apply it to multitasking etc. and add in the fact that every time Apple adds a feature they have to update the JVM to work with it as well as their normal APIs. Apple does not want to go back to maintaining their own fork of the JVM like they used to do for the desktop.
The A-prefix means not. Theism refers to the belief in a religious entity. So how do you include a non-religion in your list of religions? That's like calling Scientology scientific discipline.
Actually, he never refers to Atheism as a religion and it is entirely appropriate to include it in this conversation as it is about religious discrimination. The government is forbidden from promoting religion, and that includes promoting groups that discriminate against people with no religion.
Any boy that meets the age requirements can join scouting. There is no discrimination there.
This is not quite true. Fact check from Wikipedia:
The Boy Scouts of America's position is that atheists and agnostics cannot participate as Scouts (youth members) or Scouters (adult leaders). According to the Bylaws of the BSA, Declaration of Religious Principle:
"The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members."
During the membership application process and as a requirement to obtain membership, youths and adults are required to subscribe to the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle and to agree to abide by the Scout Oath and Law, which include the words, "do my duty to God" and "reverent". Youths are also required to repeat the Scout Oath and Law periodically after being accepted as Scouts. The BSA believes that atheists and agnostics are not appropriate role models of the Scout Oath and Law for boys, and thus will not accept such adults as leaders.[4]
Well since the link is slashdotted, maybe a list of the new features will be useful:
So it looks like solid improvement for the most part, nothing really revolutionary, but solid.
Discrimination exists. There is a reason for it these days.
Umm, okay. I'm not even going to address this.
Also what is wrong with organizations using facilities for free?
It is illegal favoritism. Other organizations are not allowed use of the same facilities for free.
Did they not help pay for it with their taxes?
No, the BSA is a not for profit that does not pay taxes. More importantly though, why should some taxpayers be forced to pay utility costs and upkeep fees for facilities that are incurred by an organization that bans their children from joining? If the BSA allowed anyone to join, then I would have a lot less of a problem letting them use government facilities, but when they exclude some citizens, that nixes it for me.
Are you not being discriminatory yourself?
No because I'm proposing equal access to all people based upon the criteria of nondiscrimination in the constitution. The government is forbidden from providing favoritism based upon certain criteria including religion. That extends to providing extra perks to private organizations that discriminate on that basis. You do remember the constitution don't you?
I think the government exists to help people...
Which it can do by providing free facilities to organizations that follow the guidelines necessary for it to do so legally. The government is not allowed to promote any religion and spending taxpayer dollars subsidizing an organization that does promote specific religions, certainly qualifies.
I can see the difference between a group of kids getting together with their parents and a rock band playing at a public arena.
What about a rock band that does not allow Christians to attend? Are you okay with that? What about a club using the public park for the day, but not letting white people in the park that day because whites cannot join said club?
They did something like that with a local park I used to go to when I grew up.
Sorry, your anecdote does not apply. The government charging fees for thing is one thing. How would you feel if that same park had started charging fees, but only to registered members of the republican party? That's what we're talking about, unequal treatment for groups based upon criteria specifically forbidden by federal law to be used as criteria for unequal treatment by the government. It's entirely the BSA's choice to discriminate based upon those criteria and that is what makes them ineligible for government benefits; the same as the KKK, Neo Nazis, and the Black Panthers.
And no, I do not consider BB guns REAL guns with REAL bullets.
Then you failed to internalize how firearm safety conditioning works.
Citation? I've seen rulings in specific countries in the EU that say users can reject an EULA after a purchase and return the part of the purchase to which the EULA applies. I have not seen any ruling binding in the whole of the EU that makes EULA's non-binding.
In the US and EU, courts have found specific portions of EULAs to be unenforcable, but I haven't seen anything making them non-binding in general.
Discriminate?
Yes, they discriminate against people based upon religion and sexual orientation. I have no problem with a private organization doing either, but they should not be eligible for government funding or freebies like they have been getting.
Government funding? I don't think so.
Here is a list of a few dozen instances where they've lost government aid in various court cases. Mostly it was a case of being allowed to use public facilities free of charge. It includes the cities of Philadelphia and Berkley and the states of Illinois and Oregon in the US. There are still many city and state governments providing assistance to the BSA despite it being illegal favoritism. Sadly too many people in the US are in favor of discrimination against gays and non-christians so politicians are unwilling to do anything about it.
Seriously, assault rifles have point-and-click interfaces. Guns are ridiculously easy to operate.
That's actually quite funny. Watching someone load and fire an AR-15 for the first time is usually amusing. Will they figure out how to cock it? Will they open the ejection port? And then there's the whole thing about actually aiming and hitting a target. Back in my day, the BSA had a merit badge for rifle and shotgun marksmanship that was a wee bit more applicable.
That's taught by, you know, the non-video game part of being a cub scout.
I actually quit the boy scouts as a kid because we didn't do any scouting. Showing up to every meeting and going to clean parks and talk about the evils of drugs wasn't my thing. I actually liked to spend my time out in the woods, hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, etc. Our troop did very little of such things, however, and I quickly lost interest.
I'm still trying to figure out why a bunch of people who obviously loath Apple products spend so much time discussing them.
Because HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba are doing so little of interest. Microsoft too, to some extent. When was the last time Lenovo made real progress towards pressuring the industry to move towards standards compliant protocols and file formats?