Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst system apart from all the others.
Winston Churchill was a smart man.
There are no elections or checks on the elite and they are self selecting.
I actually agree with you about socialist communisms - I just worded it differently and perhaps wasn't clear. They don't work, and that's the problem. BUT, if they did work, then in that hypothetical fairy land, they're wonderful.
Actually, the UK is quite close to a real democracy. It's still indirect in the sense that we have representatives, but there aren't really any legal limits on their power, other than that they need to call and win an election every four years or so.
The UK is much closer to a real democracy than a democratic republic is. From a practical standpoint, the biggest difference is that you, as a citizen, can call for a referendum - something that doesn't exist in democratic republics (generally even democratic republics that do have the concept of a referendum require that a part of the government calls it and a general citizen cannot). It's not commonly practiced that a citizen calls a referendum, but it is something that can be done. Personally that is the one thing I find a little scary living a democratic republic now instead of a democracy - if the government wants to do something that I disagree with but is within the bounds of law and constitution, I have no way to even try and stop them other than "asking nicely" and trying to convince those that do pass the laws to change their minds when it comes time for them to vote on it (letters to appropriate people, etc).
As a Brit, I guess you know what a referendum is, but in case anyone else reading this doesn't: A referendum is where the people of a nation vote on something such as a new law, government change, constitutional amendment or so on. The people are directly voting on the topic rather than voting for officials that then make up their mind on it. I believe the closest thing in the US is a "proposition", but it's structured slightly differently and generally used for very different things ("propositions" tend to be pretty local and "small issues" as far as I understand, state level at largest, whereas a democratic referendum is usually a more core topic of the country at large and is for the "big issues" usually.
Actually, I believe a large part of the problem is that the police ALREADY fear the general population, and that's when they act "in their own defense" and do things like shoot people holding kitchen utensils (Australia) or taser hundcuffed people (USA). Give them yet more ways to hurt and temporarily disable people with less possible impact back on them, and it's pretty much certain they'll use them.
When two people fear each other, violent conflict often arises.
I can't speak for the grandparent's thoughts, but reading the post, I do not think the poster "admires" the "horrible sociopaths" or thinks they are "no worse than us". I think instead the post is quite clear that in these HORRIBLE places where HORRIBLE things happen, there were/are still limits to how powers are abused. The technology on offer allows those limits not to be changed (neither raised nor lowered) but instead allows things beyond the limits to be treated more harshly than before, which in some ways feels like a softening of the limit. The "limit" for someone in power shooting someone in a place like the USSR was clearly much lower than the "limit" for someone in power shooting someone in a place like the USA. However, now, with this new technology, things below the limit (without changing the actual limit) can be treated much more harshly and violently, which is "a bad thing".
Had I lived in the USSR (never did), I am quite certain that some things I now enjoy being able to do would have got me shot. Where I live now, I will not get shot for doing those things. Were I to move to the US, I would also not get shot for doing those things - HOWEVER I might get a "Pain Ray Gun" fired at me or be tasered... and that's NOT GOOD.
Sorry for replying twice to your post... another note of it just struck me as I re-read it.
...assuming you live in a democracy
I don't - I live in a democratic republic. And if you live in th US, so do you. I used to live in a real democracy, and it had some distinct advantages and disadvantages compared to the democratic republic that I now live in. No system of government is perfect (some are pretty clearly worse (for the people) than others, but as yet, no-one's come up with a system that I'd call great).
The BEST system for the people that I've seen is a socialist communism. The problem there though is that no-one has ever managed to set one up according to the principles of it, and almost every country that's tried it has ended up with something that seems more like fascism. So we can probably rule that out as a good idea simply because there seem to be built-in flaws around the power given to the leaders. For now, I'd say true democracies and democratic republics are probably the "safest" and "most stable" systems for giving a fairly consistent good standard of life for people. But still far from perfect.
You're also free to criticize the CIA in a way that would have caused Russians to be sent on a one way trip to the gulag if they did the same about the KGB
This sort of comment is something I've seen a lot from people in America (and by that, I don't mean all Americans think that way, just that I've seen several say it!). However it's an attitude that I think is liable to get you in trouble. Freedom of expression and free speech are great things - but if they're the ONLY freedom you have left at the end of the day, you're in big trouble.
When you are free to complain about the environment you live in, but not free enough to affect change on that environment, you're not really free at all. So, please, continue to stand up for your free speech and freedom of expression - it is a great right to have, and shared by most civilised countries in the world. But PLEASE remember to continue to fight for your other freedoms as well.
I'm not an American and I don't live in America, nor do I have any interest in doing so. But I do care about America's future because it is a powerful country and what affects it also affects the rest of the world to a lesser extent. I want to see America become great again, instead of degenerating in to a fascist police state as it currently appears to be headed towards.
Essentially, many senses are already just an augmented form of "touch" as it is. When you hear something, it's because there is vibration of your eardrum. When you smell something, it's because tiny particles are touching nerves inside your nose (the shape of which determine the smell).
The senses are seem quite different to us though, because the brain uses them differently. It will be the same for any system like this. Once you "get used to it" (your brain adapts for it), you won't be consciously thinking, "it's vibrating pretty hard in that direction, so there's something close", you'll just "sense" that something is close in that direction.
A mod I'm getting put in soon is a small magnet in the fingertip - it allows you to sense electric and magnetic fields. I think I first read about it here on Slashdot somewhere, but I've done a LOT of reading about it since then. People that have it don't "feel the magnet moving", they simply "sense the field".
I'm very much in favour of extending my own capabilities in this way, and plan on being quite heavily modded before my time is through!
Actually, it's totally off-topic, but I find the same. I'm a native English speaker that has learned several other languages and is currently learning German. I have a German friend that constantly mixes up "das" and "dass" when writing. I can't imagine myself ever making this mistake.
I do think though that learning several other languages also improves your own mother tongue as you're more likely to pay attention to it when speaking and/or writing it (e.g. I never use the wrong "there"/"their"/"they're" and other common mistakes)
Please mod parent up so that someone knowledgeable can answer the question - I don't know the answer myself, but would love to, and the Anonymous Coward score of zero means many people may miss this great question.
It's not so simple when you're not the one writing the code, but have to deal with the results. There's an SDK that I use as a part of my job, developed by our head office in Japan - it's a set of C# classes, and nothing annoys me more than typing "Connection foo = new Connection();", then noticing Visual Studio isn't highlighting it as I'd expect. Hunting around for anywhere up to a minute and eventually finding out it is actually "Conectin" instead of "Connection". If there were a good "programmers spellchecker", I may not need to use it myself, but I could give it to my Japanese colleagues to make MY life easier!
(note: the above example is fictitious, but is an illustration of the type of error that I deal with that this would prevent)
That's it, end of story. The judge ordered IP's to be logged to a non volatile storage.
But that's the problem... that's NOT the end of the story. There have been several posts saying people are missing the point by discussing "handing over all the RAM" and so on, but really, we're not missing the point - we're taking it to the next logical step. I think most posters fully understand that it's not "all of the data in RAM" that is being asked for, and it is indeed only the IP addresses. The concern though is the IMPLICATION of how this ruling came about.
The reason was that ram is a storage medium and there are laws that govern that type of thing
And there lies the real problem. The judge has decided, of her own accord, that RAM is a storage medium. Simply by saying this, a huge can of worms has been opened. RAM is not a storage medium in the traditional sense of the term. Yes, it stores data - but it is designed to store it for a transitory time only, and with no reasonable expectation of retention. It's similar to saying an etch-a-sketch is a storage medium (to quote someone further up in the discussion).
By saying RAM is a storage medium, everything else that applies to storage now applies to RAM as well. How many ISPs are "storing" child pornography (even if only for a split second)? How many copies of that DVD have you inadvertently made by playing it on DVD players with caches? How many companies are breaking the law by not retaining full audit trail data for financial records that have passed through various routers and other caching systems? THAT is where the problem in this decision lies - the issue of TorrentSpy turning on logging is quite secondary to all of that.
What the judge is saying is that just because you keep a file in RAM and not on on disk, you can't claim you aren't "storing" that data.
Correct, and therefore everything that is in your RAM at any point is being stored by you. SO, the obvious next step is to go after pretty much every ISP for "storing" child pornography, illegally copied movies and music, terrorist threats in emails and so on.
Ah yes... many years ago (about 10) I lived there. I was in a coffee-shop, enjoying a smoke, and then my phone rang and I had to go. I walked out on to the street, planning on finishing it quickly (there was only about 25% of it left anyway), when all of a sudden a cop walks up to me. Naturally, not being from Holland originally, I was a little concerned... That was, until he said, "You know, you're not supposed to smoke that in the street - when you finish that one, don't light another". Suffice to say, that is when I realised that Holland is truly the land of the blessed.
Moving back to Europe was quite a shock for me after 6 years in Australia. I had become quite used to my (perfectly normal) 3.6 litre V6 engine in my Holden Commodore. Here, that's considered quite a monster of an engine. You don't achieve "monster status" in Australia until at LEAST the 4 and half or higher litre V8 beasts.
When I moved here, I bought myself a 2.0 litre Renault Megane and I've had a couple of people ask me why I didn't buy something with a smaller engine - to me, 2.0 litres IS small! I'm sure I'll get used to it though - and the biggest thing I've found is that my little 2.0l Megane can do pretty much anything my 3.6l Commodore could do, with the exception of pushing you back in your seat when you put your foot down when you're already going over the legal speed limit in Australia. I'm pretty happy with it, and even more so when looking at the petrol prices here compared to Australia! (Australia's prices would be considered high by people in the US, but DIRT cheap by people here in Europe... I think they're comparable to Canada, but don't quote me on that)
Are you sure your acid isn't laced with something else? I'm not really aware of anyone saying LSD feels "speedy" except during the initial "come on" phase that I described earlier.
In a post up the page a bit from here, I mentioned that I heard LSD is sometimes laced with PCP in the US - if you live there and can't 100% confirm the substance is pure, I'd be very cautious if I were you.
Like I said earlier, I'm very happy with my source of it, since I can confirm the chain back to the manufacture and therefore am well informed of exactly what it is (LSD-25, nothing else) and the dosage (currently the ones I get are 150 micrograms, give or take 10). I don't think I'd be comfortable getting it "unknown" again like I used to in my younger days.
Which does all lead back to another topic of discussion elsewhere here - legalisation. If it was legal and government produced, not only would that put help reduce the income of the "shady dealers", but it'd guarantee a level of safety and purity as well. That applies to many substances, not just LSD. I don't really ever foresee it happening in any modern western country, but it's a nice dream and one I think SHOULD be done (even though I think it won't be) for many substances that are currently illegal but relatively low-risk/low-harm (using alcohol as the basis for comparison on what that constitutes seems fair to me).
A life based on pure reason is a life void of friendship, ecstasy, and love
Why? I do my best to always define a logical reason for anything I do, and I have friends, I experience ecstasy and I fall in love. All of these things have logical reasons and I can see and accept them, without it taking away from the experience at all.
For example, falling in love: I know it's a pre-programmed set of instructions in my brain, based on the very simple fact that it's more likely to cause me to want to breed and look after my young. And I know that this is because of natural selection (those who did not want to breed didn't, and died with no offspring. Those who did not want to care for their young didn't and many died.). But I'm still completely happy, and in fact ecstactic, when I meet a beautiful young lady, spend time with her, and fall in love. And of course, so I should be, and I'm happy to say I can even explain why!
On "the streets" that is unfortunately very true these days. I'm thankful I have a source where I am able to confirm what I'm getting really is what I asked for and not a nasty fruit cocktail. (I don't live in the US, but doing some reading, I've heard LSD is sometimes laced with PCP over there... that's just scary as hell!)
Would you please site sources stating that Ecstasy and LSD is safe, your own personal accounts aside? (They really can't be verified)
You're asking me to cite sources stating a negative - that's not so easy. For example, it can be studied and (for all intents and purposes) proven that LSD does NOT do a particular thing (to use an obvious and slightly silly example: LSD can be quite easily determined to NOT cause your teeth to fall out), but to say "it doesn't do anything harmful" in a test is pretty much impossible. You CAN do tests to see if it DOES do a particular thing and then record the results as yes/no. Enough of these tests rendering a "no" is an indication, but still not a definitive proof, of safety.
A quick Google search and I came up blank I'm afraid - plenty of pages saying "studies were done", but no links to the studies themselves that I could find. I could also find plenty of sources listing it as a "toxic substance", which is fair enough given that the lethal dosage is technically fairly low... the trap there though is that the effective dosage is amazingly low - while most drugs are measured in milligrams, or even grams, LSD is measured in micrograms. So the fact that 14 MILLIgrams is considered the lethal dosage isn't so much of a concern when you realise a single trip is between 80 and 200 MICROgrams (depending on the manufacture - it's not really random, so if you buy two trips of the same "brand" they'll almost certainly be the same strength with only a very small margin of error). I personally have never taken more than 600 micrograms at once, and that was a "pretty severe trip" - realistically noone could even begin to approach lethal dosage accidentally.
Note that in my search I was trying to be fair and also find studies proving any negative harmful effects. Plenty of "anti-drug" scare tactics saying things like "it makes you go crazy and you might kill yourself by jumping off a building when you think you can fly!" and other things like that, but it seems surprisingly quiet on the negative physical/mental effects front (as opposed to the "secondary effects" such as self-harm under the effects). I think that's a fairly good indicator in itself. On that same note, I was unable to find any evidence of suicide during an LSD trip that wasn't already planned prior to taking the LSD. Nor was I able to find any concrete examples of accidental self-harm while under the effects. (although I certainly don't rule out either of these as possibilities, I think instances of it are likely to be vanishingly small - LSD may make the world seem very different and alien for quite a few hours, but I've never found myself to lose "basic common sense" while under the influence of it). Additionally, some of the anti-drug sites are quite certain that "many" LSD users experience flashbacks and psychosis, however none linked to any research, and this information goes against the firsthand reports of the majority of LSD users I know and have read about (see another one of my posts mentioning heavy LSD use such as by Paul McCartney, and yet he has never reported flashbacks).
So, to sum up, no I can't find any sources citing the safety of LSD other than people's own experiences (which are equally as biased as mine), but I also can't find any sources citing the dangers of it, which is far more telling in my opinion. And in any case, it is easier to provide evidence of a particular harm than evidence of no harm. Just as it only takes one cat to prove the existence of cats, but a thousand square miles empty of cats still doesn't prove they don't exist - And I was completely unable to find that "one cat" (study showing harmful effect from LSD) - this doesn't mean LSD has no harmful effects, but it is a good indication that there MIGHT not be any.
Replace "LSD" with "Water" in the above sentence and it's equally true, so please don't take it that I'm saying "ignorance of dangers means there are no dangers", just that I think on the balance of probabilities,
Yep, fair enough. Nice chart and I don't disagree that it probably is the case. However I was talking about how it "feels", not where it technically falls on such a chart. The perfect example is that that chart lists THC (Cannabis) right in the centre - the vast majority of users however will report no hallucinogenic effects and that it is a much stronger depressant than stimulant (when you get stoned, sitting around lazily giggling at random things is far more likely than wanting to go dancing all night) - and doubly so for me in that pot pretty much just makes me feel "seasick" and then pass out immediately (which, as I'm sure you can imagine, makes me personally not so interested in it!).
(TOTALLY offtopic and I fully expect to be modded as such)
It's the kind of hyporacy that makes it hot for two girls to kiss and gross for two men.:)
Really? As a 100% straight man, I can say that seeing people kiss is hot (or cute, or nice, or whatever depending on the circumstances of the kiss), regardless of the genders involved. I have ZERO desire to kiss another guy (hence my statement that I'm 100% straight), but if two guys are enjoying a good kiss and I'm there to witness it, I'm more likely to turn my thoughts to kissing a cute girl, and thus it's a good thing. I'm well aware this viewpoint is in the minority though (I consider the vast majority of guys to be somewhat homophobic based purely on that thought process).
Ecstasy: kills lots of people by means of deregulating body temp. and/or making them overdose on water.
Overdosing on Ecstasy can certainly kill in the method you describe, and it's happened to a "friend of a friend" of mine (no-one I know personally). So yes, it has dangers, but so do many other substances we legally consume. If it was legal, the dangers would be well known. I don't think anyone has ever died from a single E (or even two) that contains a normal amount of the active ingredients (mostly MDMA, but not entirely in most samples).
LSD safe?? Some people never come back from the trip. Some others keep having recurring flashes and trips, even years after taking it.
I've heard this a lot, but have NEVER been given a real world example or study to prove it. My (admittedly anecdotal, but fairly extensive) experience shows nothing related to these claims, as does all of the (also anecdotal, but in vast quantities) evidence presented to me by other users both online and in personal discussions.
I will readily admit it is possible that it effects some people differently to others and that it's possible that with the right brain chemistry/make up (such as with HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder)) it could cause these kinds of effects in a very small sampling of the population (just as sugar is a dangerous substance (although in a completely different way) to people with diabetes if not controlled properly), but I've yet to hear of any hard evidence of it affecting people that do not have any such problem. It's a tricky one to really figure out, because if someone does experience flashbacks after having taken LSD, who's to say they didn't already have HPPD (or something similar) and it just never presented itself prior to their LSD experience? Also, many people experience the occasional "glitch in existence" (such as seeing things out of the corner of their eye, thinking they heard a knock at the door when no-one was there etc) in their daily lives (especially when very tired) and simply dismiss it, whereas those who have taken LSD and are worried about it may be more likely to notice it more often and attribute it as a kind of "flashback". My most vivid example of this is when I drove for 18 hours straight once after a long night (not on any drugs, except nicotine) and very little sleep - I arrived at my parents house, went to use the bathroom and noticed the floor tiles appeared slightly "wavy" - I do NOT attribute this to past LSD use, but instead extreme tiredness combined with having been moving at a rapid speed for a long time which alters perception anyway. The floor tiles stopped being "wavy" after about 10 seconds and then I was fine (although still dead tired!). Had anyone not familiar with LSD had an experience like this, they'd almost certainly put it down to the same factors I did, but just because I've taken LSD, people are quick to jump on the story when I tell it and say it's a flashback. And if those same people had taken LSD once, and were worried about flashbacks, would almost certainly call it one when they experienced it.
Please note that I'm not saying "LSD is harmless", I'm saying it's "very safe compared to pretty much any other drug" - I think it's safe to say that if use of it was harmful in even a noticeable percentage of cases, then prolonged or heavy use should be a much higher percentage, and yet we see many famous people (such as Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles) who have been heavy LSD users in the past with no obvious problems from it at all. Other examples of heavy drug users that also used LSD being somewhat "messed up" these days (eg Ozzy Osbourne), are ruled out as a fair example due to the high amount of other drugs they also took (so we can not fairly determine if it was the LSD or other drugs (or something else entirely) that caused the problem).
If anyone reading this is the kind of person who takes "notability" as significant, there are certainly notable people
Any psychedelic that's "speedy" has probably been mixed with something else and I personally would prefer to stay away. LSD has some initial effects that can feel a little "speedy" while your brain adjusts and you certainly do heat up a bit physically, but on an 8 to 12 hour trip, this lasts half an hour max (and usually MUCH less), so is more of the "coming on" than the "trip" itself.
Mushrooms (which I don't actually like by the way) tend to not be "speedy" at all, but in their natural form, they contain some poisons as well as the Psilocybin, and I've never liked the slightly sick feeling that this causes. Chemical Psilocybin is very fun and not at all speedy, but rare where I live, so I prefer to stick to LSD. Psilocybin also fells a little more unpredictable to me, but that is just my personal experience - others report the exact opposite.
Ecstasy technically falls in to the psychedelic category, but realistically it's an upper with a VERY minor hallucinogenic effect.
Care to name any psychedelics that are "speedy" in a pure (or "generally sold") form? Of course, by including "generally sold", it's possible that where you live, it's normal to put amphetamines in LSD, but believe me when I say that around these parts (and other parts I've lived) that would be considered the height of wrong-ness.
All English speaking countries are a pretty bad bunch on this. I'd recommend learning another language. But if you MUST choose an English speaking country, I think New Zealand probably meets the most of your above criteria - just stay out of Auckland. Preferably somewhere much further south like Dunedin is good for the "do what you want as long as you're not hurting anyone" attitude.
(please note: attitude, not law. The law isn't too bad there, but there's still some pretty screwed up ones) (second note: live on a farm, it's easier to get a gun then) (third note: I grew up in NZ, but I live in Germany these days - and I'm LOVING IT HERE. Stupid laws exist everywhere. Overall, the only place I've ever been happier with life and a feeling of personal liberty than here in Germany was when I lived in the Netherlands (which I'm only a few hours drive away from now anyway (I don't live there anymore, but only because I have a job here)))
Ha, actually believe me that you're not the first person to tell me that!
In all honesty though, I've been praised for my user interfaces in that they're extremely simple, everything is really obvious (without being obnoxious or ugly) and any advanced functionality is available behind appropriate labelled "advanced" buttons or menus (depending on the app).
As I said, I consider LSD to be something which has helped give me more perspectives on things. I don't code while under the influence of it (except sometimes low level stuff that doesn't affect user interaction at all, and even then it's only the very rare occasions I WANT to code in that state), but I'd definitely say that the way it's helped me get more perspectives on things is an influencing factor in my user interfaces - before having used LSD, I didn't pay that much attention to "keeping it simple" and had much more complex interfaces working under the principle of "present the user with everything they might need so it's easy to find". Which CAN be a good principle in some rare cases, but more often that not, it's not appreciated by the more un-savvy users.
Slashdot Mirror
Winston Churchill was a smart man.
There are no elections or checks on the elite and they are self selecting.I actually agree with you about socialist communisms - I just worded it differently and perhaps wasn't clear. They don't work, and that's the problem. BUT, if they did work, then in that hypothetical fairy land, they're wonderful.
Actually, the UK is quite close to a real democracy. It's still indirect in the sense that we have representatives, but there aren't really any legal limits on their power, other than that they need to call and win an election every four years or so.The UK is much closer to a real democracy than a democratic republic is. From a practical standpoint, the biggest difference is that you, as a citizen, can call for a referendum - something that doesn't exist in democratic republics (generally even democratic republics that do have the concept of a referendum require that a part of the government calls it and a general citizen cannot). It's not commonly practiced that a citizen calls a referendum, but it is something that can be done. Personally that is the one thing I find a little scary living a democratic republic now instead of a democracy - if the government wants to do something that I disagree with but is within the bounds of law and constitution, I have no way to even try and stop them other than "asking nicely" and trying to convince those that do pass the laws to change their minds when it comes time for them to vote on it (letters to appropriate people, etc).
As a Brit, I guess you know what a referendum is, but in case anyone else reading this doesn't: A referendum is where the people of a nation vote on something such as a new law, government change, constitutional amendment or so on. The people are directly voting on the topic rather than voting for officials that then make up their mind on it. I believe the closest thing in the US is a "proposition", but it's structured slightly differently and generally used for very different things ("propositions" tend to be pretty local and "small issues" as far as I understand, state level at largest, whereas a democratic referendum is usually a more core topic of the country at large and is for the "big issues" usually.
Actually, I believe a large part of the problem is that the police ALREADY fear the general population, and that's when they act "in their own defense" and do things like shoot people holding kitchen utensils (Australia) or taser hundcuffed people (USA). Give them yet more ways to hurt and temporarily disable people with less possible impact back on them, and it's pretty much certain they'll use them.
When two people fear each other, violent conflict often arises.
I can't speak for the grandparent's thoughts, but reading the post, I do not think the poster "admires" the "horrible sociopaths" or thinks they are "no worse than us". I think instead the post is quite clear that in these HORRIBLE places where HORRIBLE things happen, there were/are still limits to how powers are abused.
The technology on offer allows those limits not to be changed (neither raised nor lowered) but instead allows things beyond the limits to be treated more harshly than before, which in some ways feels like a softening of the limit.
The "limit" for someone in power shooting someone in a place like the USSR was clearly much lower than the "limit" for someone in power shooting someone in a place like the USA. However, now, with this new technology, things below the limit (without changing the actual limit) can be treated much more harshly and violently, which is "a bad thing".
Had I lived in the USSR (never did), I am quite certain that some things I now enjoy being able to do would have got me shot. Where I live now, I will not get shot for doing those things. Were I to move to the US, I would also not get shot for doing those things - HOWEVER I might get a "Pain Ray Gun" fired at me or be tasered... and that's NOT GOOD.
Clear?
Sorry for replying twice to your post... another note of it just struck me as I re-read it.
...assuming you live in a democracyI don't - I live in a democratic republic. And if you live in th US, so do you. I used to live in a real democracy, and it had some distinct advantages and disadvantages compared to the democratic republic that I now live in. No system of government is perfect (some are pretty clearly worse (for the people) than others, but as yet, no-one's come up with a system that I'd call great).
The BEST system for the people that I've seen is a socialist communism. The problem there though is that no-one has ever managed to set one up according to the principles of it, and almost every country that's tried it has ended up with something that seems more like fascism. So we can probably rule that out as a good idea simply because there seem to be built-in flaws around the power given to the leaders. For now, I'd say true democracies and democratic republics are probably the "safest" and "most stable" systems for giving a fairly consistent good standard of life for people. But still far from perfect.
Please don't take this as a personal attack...
You're also free to criticize the CIA in a way that would have caused Russians to be sent on a one way trip to the gulag if they did the same about the KGBThis sort of comment is something I've seen a lot from people in America (and by that, I don't mean all Americans think that way, just that I've seen several say it!). However it's an attitude that I think is liable to get you in trouble. Freedom of expression and free speech are great things - but if they're the ONLY freedom you have left at the end of the day, you're in big trouble.
When you are free to complain about the environment you live in, but not free enough to affect change on that environment, you're not really free at all. So, please, continue to stand up for your free speech and freedom of expression - it is a great right to have, and shared by most civilised countries in the world. But PLEASE remember to continue to fight for your other freedoms as well.
I'm not an American and I don't live in America, nor do I have any interest in doing so. But I do care about America's future because it is a powerful country and what affects it also affects the rest of the world to a lesser extent. I want to see America become great again, instead of degenerating in to a fascist police state as it currently appears to be headed towards.
And for anyone that has never experienced it, I do HIGHLY recommend it as a way to get a better understanding of how your own mind works.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine the best way to experience it.
Essentially, many senses are already just an augmented form of "touch" as it is. When you hear something, it's because there is vibration of your eardrum. When you smell something, it's because tiny particles are touching nerves inside your nose (the shape of which determine the smell).
The senses are seem quite different to us though, because the brain uses them differently. It will be the same for any system like this. Once you "get used to it" (your brain adapts for it), you won't be consciously thinking, "it's vibrating pretty hard in that direction, so there's something close", you'll just "sense" that something is close in that direction.
A mod I'm getting put in soon is a small magnet in the fingertip - it allows you to sense electric and magnetic fields. I think I first read about it here on Slashdot somewhere, but I've done a LOT of reading about it since then. People that have it don't "feel the magnet moving", they simply "sense the field".
I'm very much in favour of extending my own capabilities in this way, and plan on being quite heavily modded before my time is through!
Actually, it's totally off-topic, but I find the same. I'm a native English speaker that has learned several other languages and is currently learning German. I have a German friend that constantly mixes up "das" and "dass" when writing. I can't imagine myself ever making this mistake.
I do think though that learning several other languages also improves your own mother tongue as you're more likely to pay attention to it when speaking and/or writing it (e.g. I never use the wrong "there"/"their"/"they're" and other common mistakes)
When you work for a business equipment (read: "Photocopier") manufacturer, having your head office in Japan tends to be pretty normal!
Please mod parent up so that someone knowledgeable can answer the question - I don't know the answer myself, but would love to, and the Anonymous Coward score of zero means many people may miss this great question.
It's not so simple when you're not the one writing the code, but have to deal with the results. There's an SDK that I use as a part of my job, developed by our head office in Japan - it's a set of C# classes, and nothing annoys me more than typing "Connection foo = new Connection();", then noticing Visual Studio isn't highlighting it as I'd expect. Hunting around for anywhere up to a minute and eventually finding out it is actually "Conectin" instead of "Connection". If there were a good "programmers spellchecker", I may not need to use it myself, but I could give it to my Japanese colleagues to make MY life easier! (note: the above example is fictitious, but is an illustration of the type of error that I deal with that this would prevent)
But that's the problem... that's NOT the end of the story. There have been several posts saying people are missing the point by discussing "handing over all the RAM" and so on, but really, we're not missing the point - we're taking it to the next logical step. I think most posters fully understand that it's not "all of the data in RAM" that is being asked for, and it is indeed only the IP addresses. The concern though is the IMPLICATION of how this ruling came about.
The reason was that ram is a storage medium and there are laws that govern that type of thingAnd there lies the real problem. The judge has decided, of her own accord, that RAM is a storage medium. Simply by saying this, a huge can of worms has been opened. RAM is not a storage medium in the traditional sense of the term. Yes, it stores data - but it is designed to store it for a transitory time only, and with no reasonable expectation of retention. It's similar to saying an etch-a-sketch is a storage medium (to quote someone further up in the discussion).
By saying RAM is a storage medium, everything else that applies to storage now applies to RAM as well. How many ISPs are "storing" child pornography (even if only for a split second)? How many copies of that DVD have you inadvertently made by playing it on DVD players with caches? How many companies are breaking the law by not retaining full audit trail data for financial records that have passed through various routers and other caching systems? THAT is where the problem in this decision lies - the issue of TorrentSpy turning on logging is quite secondary to all of that.
Correct, and therefore everything that is in your RAM at any point is being stored by you. SO, the obvious next step is to go after pretty much every ISP for "storing" child pornography, illegally copied movies and music, terrorist threats in emails and so on.
Ah yes... many years ago (about 10) I lived there. I was in a coffee-shop, enjoying a smoke, and then my phone rang and I had to go. I walked out on to the street, planning on finishing it quickly (there was only about 25% of it left anyway), when all of a sudden a cop walks up to me. Naturally, not being from Holland originally, I was a little concerned... That was, until he said, "You know, you're not supposed to smoke that in the street - when you finish that one, don't light another". Suffice to say, that is when I realised that Holland is truly the land of the blessed.
Moving back to Europe was quite a shock for me after 6 years in Australia. I had become quite used to my (perfectly normal) 3.6 litre V6 engine in my Holden Commodore. Here, that's considered quite a monster of an engine. You don't achieve "monster status" in Australia until at LEAST the 4 and half or higher litre V8 beasts.
When I moved here, I bought myself a 2.0 litre Renault Megane and I've had a couple of people ask me why I didn't buy something with a smaller engine - to me, 2.0 litres IS small! I'm sure I'll get used to it though - and the biggest thing I've found is that my little 2.0l Megane can do pretty much anything my 3.6l Commodore could do, with the exception of pushing you back in your seat when you put your foot down when you're already going over the legal speed limit in Australia. I'm pretty happy with it, and even more so when looking at the petrol prices here compared to Australia! (Australia's prices would be considered high by people in the US, but DIRT cheap by people here in Europe... I think they're comparable to Canada, but don't quote me on that)
Are you sure your acid isn't laced with something else? I'm not really aware of anyone saying LSD feels "speedy" except during the initial "come on" phase that I described earlier.
In a post up the page a bit from here, I mentioned that I heard LSD is sometimes laced with PCP in the US - if you live there and can't 100% confirm the substance is pure, I'd be very cautious if I were you.
Like I said earlier, I'm very happy with my source of it, since I can confirm the chain back to the manufacture and therefore am well informed of exactly what it is (LSD-25, nothing else) and the dosage (currently the ones I get are 150 micrograms, give or take 10). I don't think I'd be comfortable getting it "unknown" again like I used to in my younger days.
Which does all lead back to another topic of discussion elsewhere here - legalisation. If it was legal and government produced, not only would that put help reduce the income of the "shady dealers", but it'd guarantee a level of safety and purity as well. That applies to many substances, not just LSD. I don't really ever foresee it happening in any modern western country, but it's a nice dream and one I think SHOULD be done (even though I think it won't be) for many substances that are currently illegal but relatively low-risk/low-harm (using alcohol as the basis for comparison on what that constitutes seems fair to me).
Why? I do my best to always define a logical reason for anything I do, and I have friends, I experience ecstasy and I fall in love. All of these things have logical reasons and I can see and accept them, without it taking away from the experience at all.
For example, falling in love: I know it's a pre-programmed set of instructions in my brain, based on the very simple fact that it's more likely to cause me to want to breed and look after my young. And I know that this is because of natural selection (those who did not want to breed didn't, and died with no offspring. Those who did not want to care for their young didn't and many died.). But I'm still completely happy, and in fact ecstactic, when I meet a beautiful young lady, spend time with her, and fall in love. And of course, so I should be, and I'm happy to say I can even explain why!
On "the streets" that is unfortunately very true these days. I'm thankful I have a source where I am able to confirm what I'm getting really is what I asked for and not a nasty fruit cocktail. (I don't live in the US, but doing some reading, I've heard LSD is sometimes laced with PCP over there... that's just scary as hell!)
Would you please site sources stating that Ecstasy and LSD is safe, your own personal accounts aside? (They really can't be verified)
You're asking me to cite sources stating a negative - that's not so easy. For example, it can be studied and (for all intents and purposes) proven that LSD does NOT do a particular thing (to use an obvious and slightly silly example: LSD can be quite easily determined to NOT cause your teeth to fall out), but to say "it doesn't do anything harmful" in a test is pretty much impossible. You CAN do tests to see if it DOES do a particular thing and then record the results as yes/no. Enough of these tests rendering a "no" is an indication, but still not a definitive proof, of safety.
A quick Google search and I came up blank I'm afraid - plenty of pages saying "studies were done", but no links to the studies themselves that I could find. I could also find plenty of sources listing it as a "toxic substance", which is fair enough given that the lethal dosage is technically fairly low... the trap there though is that the effective dosage is amazingly low - while most drugs are measured in milligrams, or even grams, LSD is measured in micrograms. So the fact that 14 MILLIgrams is considered the lethal dosage isn't so much of a concern when you realise a single trip is between 80 and 200 MICROgrams (depending on the manufacture - it's not really random, so if you buy two trips of the same "brand" they'll almost certainly be the same strength with only a very small margin of error). I personally have never taken more than 600 micrograms at once, and that was a "pretty severe trip" - realistically noone could even begin to approach lethal dosage accidentally.
Note that in my search I was trying to be fair and also find studies proving any negative harmful effects. Plenty of "anti-drug" scare tactics saying things like "it makes you go crazy and you might kill yourself by jumping off a building when you think you can fly!" and other things like that, but it seems surprisingly quiet on the negative physical/mental effects front (as opposed to the "secondary effects" such as self-harm under the effects). I think that's a fairly good indicator in itself. On that same note, I was unable to find any evidence of suicide during an LSD trip that wasn't already planned prior to taking the LSD. Nor was I able to find any concrete examples of accidental self-harm while under the effects. (although I certainly don't rule out either of these as possibilities, I think instances of it are likely to be vanishingly small - LSD may make the world seem very different and alien for quite a few hours, but I've never found myself to lose "basic common sense" while under the influence of it). Additionally, some of the anti-drug sites are quite certain that "many" LSD users experience flashbacks and psychosis, however none linked to any research, and this information goes against the firsthand reports of the majority of LSD users I know and have read about (see another one of my posts mentioning heavy LSD use such as by Paul McCartney, and yet he has never reported flashbacks).
So, to sum up, no I can't find any sources citing the safety of LSD other than people's own experiences (which are equally as biased as mine), but I also can't find any sources citing the dangers of it, which is far more telling in my opinion. And in any case, it is easier to provide evidence of a particular harm than evidence of no harm. Just as it only takes one cat to prove the existence of cats, but a thousand square miles empty of cats still doesn't prove they don't exist - And I was completely unable to find that "one cat" (study showing harmful effect from LSD) - this doesn't mean LSD has no harmful effects, but it is a good indication that there MIGHT not be any.
Replace "LSD" with "Water" in the above sentence and it's equally true, so please don't take it that I'm saying "ignorance of dangers means there are no dangers", just that I think on the balance of probabilities,
Yep, fair enough. Nice chart and I don't disagree that it probably is the case. However I was talking about how it "feels", not where it technically falls on such a chart.
The perfect example is that that chart lists THC (Cannabis) right in the centre - the vast majority of users however will report no hallucinogenic effects and that it is a much stronger depressant than stimulant (when you get stoned, sitting around lazily giggling at random things is far more likely than wanting to go dancing all night) - and doubly so for me in that pot pretty much just makes me feel "seasick" and then pass out immediately (which, as I'm sure you can imagine, makes me personally not so interested in it!).
(TOTALLY offtopic and I fully expect to be modded as such)
It's the kind of hyporacy that makes it hot for two girls to kiss and gross for two men.Really? As a 100% straight man, I can say that seeing people kiss is hot (or cute, or nice, or whatever depending on the circumstances of the kiss), regardless of the genders involved. I have ZERO desire to kiss another guy (hence my statement that I'm 100% straight), but if two guys are enjoying a good kiss and I'm there to witness it, I'm more likely to turn my thoughts to kissing a cute girl, and thus it's a good thing. I'm well aware this viewpoint is in the minority though (I consider the vast majority of guys to be somewhat homophobic based purely on that thought process).
Ecstasy: kills lots of people by means of deregulating body temp. and/or making them overdose on water.
Overdosing on Ecstasy can certainly kill in the method you describe, and it's happened to a "friend of a friend" of mine (no-one I know personally). So yes, it has dangers, but so do many other substances we legally consume. If it was legal, the dangers would be well known. I don't think anyone has ever died from a single E (or even two) that contains a normal amount of the active ingredients (mostly MDMA, but not entirely in most samples).
LSD safe?? Some people never come back from the trip. Some others keep having recurring flashes and trips, even years after taking it.
I've heard this a lot, but have NEVER been given a real world example or study to prove it. My (admittedly anecdotal, but fairly extensive) experience shows nothing related to these claims, as does all of the (also anecdotal, but in vast quantities) evidence presented to me by other users both online and in personal discussions.
I will readily admit it is possible that it effects some people differently to others and that it's possible that with the right brain chemistry/make up (such as with HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder)) it could cause these kinds of effects in a very small sampling of the population (just as sugar is a dangerous substance (although in a completely different way) to people with diabetes if not controlled properly), but I've yet to hear of any hard evidence of it affecting people that do not have any such problem. It's a tricky one to really figure out, because if someone does experience flashbacks after having taken LSD, who's to say they didn't already have HPPD (or something similar) and it just never presented itself prior to their LSD experience? Also, many people experience the occasional "glitch in existence" (such as seeing things out of the corner of their eye, thinking they heard a knock at the door when no-one was there etc) in their daily lives (especially when very tired) and simply dismiss it, whereas those who have taken LSD and are worried about it may be more likely to notice it more often and attribute it as a kind of "flashback". My most vivid example of this is when I drove for 18 hours straight once after a long night (not on any drugs, except nicotine) and very little sleep - I arrived at my parents house, went to use the bathroom and noticed the floor tiles appeared slightly "wavy" - I do NOT attribute this to past LSD use, but instead extreme tiredness combined with having been moving at a rapid speed for a long time which alters perception anyway. The floor tiles stopped being "wavy" after about 10 seconds and then I was fine (although still dead tired!). Had anyone not familiar with LSD had an experience like this, they'd almost certainly put it down to the same factors I did, but just because I've taken LSD, people are quick to jump on the story when I tell it and say it's a flashback. And if those same people had taken LSD once, and were worried about flashbacks, would almost certainly call it one when they experienced it.
Please note that I'm not saying "LSD is harmless", I'm saying it's "very safe compared to pretty much any other drug" - I think it's safe to say that if use of it was harmful in even a noticeable percentage of cases, then prolonged or heavy use should be a much higher percentage, and yet we see many famous people (such as Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles) who have been heavy LSD users in the past with no obvious problems from it at all. Other examples of heavy drug users that also used LSD being somewhat "messed up" these days (eg Ozzy Osbourne), are ruled out as a fair example due to the high amount of other drugs they also took (so we can not fairly determine if it was the LSD or other drugs (or something else entirely) that caused the problem).
If anyone reading this is the kind of person who takes "notability" as significant, there are certainly notable people
Any psychedelic that's "speedy" has probably been mixed with something else and I personally would prefer to stay away. LSD has some initial effects that can feel a little "speedy" while your brain adjusts and you certainly do heat up a bit physically, but on an 8 to 12 hour trip, this lasts half an hour max (and usually MUCH less), so is more of the "coming on" than the "trip" itself.
Mushrooms (which I don't actually like by the way) tend to not be "speedy" at all, but in their natural form, they contain some poisons as well as the Psilocybin, and I've never liked the slightly sick feeling that this causes. Chemical Psilocybin is very fun and not at all speedy, but rare where I live, so I prefer to stick to LSD. Psilocybin also fells a little more unpredictable to me, but that is just my personal experience - others report the exact opposite.
Ecstasy technically falls in to the psychedelic category, but realistically it's an upper with a VERY minor hallucinogenic effect.
Care to name any psychedelics that are "speedy" in a pure (or "generally sold") form? Of course, by including "generally sold", it's possible that where you live, it's normal to put amphetamines in LSD, but believe me when I say that around these parts (and other parts I've lived) that would be considered the height of wrong-ness.
All English speaking countries are a pretty bad bunch on this. I'd recommend learning another language. But if you MUST choose an English speaking country, I think New Zealand probably meets the most of your above criteria - just stay out of Auckland. Preferably somewhere much further south like Dunedin is good for the "do what you want as long as you're not hurting anyone" attitude.
(please note: attitude, not law. The law isn't too bad there, but there's still some pretty screwed up ones)
(second note: live on a farm, it's easier to get a gun then)
(third note: I grew up in NZ, but I live in Germany these days - and I'm LOVING IT HERE. Stupid laws exist everywhere. Overall, the only place I've ever been happier with life and a feeling of personal liberty than here in Germany was when I lived in the Netherlands (which I'm only a few hours drive away from now anyway (I don't live there anymore, but only because I have a job here)))
Ha, actually believe me that you're not the first person to tell me that!
In all honesty though, I've been praised for my user interfaces in that they're extremely simple, everything is really obvious (without being obnoxious or ugly) and any advanced functionality is available behind appropriate labelled "advanced" buttons or menus (depending on the app).
As I said, I consider LSD to be something which has helped give me more perspectives on things. I don't code while under the influence of it (except sometimes low level stuff that doesn't affect user interaction at all, and even then it's only the very rare occasions I WANT to code in that state), but I'd definitely say that the way it's helped me get more perspectives on things is an influencing factor in my user interfaces - before having used LSD, I didn't pay that much attention to "keeping it simple" and had much more complex interfaces working under the principle of "present the user with everything they might need so it's easy to find". Which CAN be a good principle in some rare cases, but more often that not, it's not appreciated by the more un-savvy users.