There have been recent studies (my Google search isn't refined enough to turn one up though) that indicate that brain developement of long-term consequence recognition isn't complete until around age twenty-five.
I guess that's why we (U.S. centric comment) allow minors to drive, and eighteen-year-olds into the military and allow them to vote!
I've got to agree with you on this...How Monkey manages to spread his karma-whoring legs wider than ninety drgrees remains a mystery to me. Yet he still manages to do it.
You can spell "fish" phonetically the following way:
ghyti
The "gh" makes the "f" sound as it does in the word "laugh". The "y" makes the "i" sound as it does in the word "physics". The "ti" makes the "sh" sound as it does in the word "station".
The idea of the above comes from the play "Pygmalion" (which was later adapted to the musical "My FairLady").
I had to go to a bit of trouble to make sense of the below. That kind of insensibility is what makes spelling/grammar important during written communication.
...it's the plural of pete as a substiture people in general and possesive...
Did you mean "...as a substitute for people in general and possessive...?" How difficult would it have been to read your own message carefully enough to spare me the time trying to figure it out? Simple typographical errors are easy to overlook (one third of yours was obviously that), but when I read a finished product like the above, I have to assume that the writer either 1) just didn't care 2) was in such a hurry to post that he/she didn't bother to preview 3) was just lazy.
If you don't care enough to make your message understandable (while correcting someone else's post at that!), why should I care what you have to say? If you're in a hurry to post, I have to wonder why. If it's laziness, why'd you bother to write at all? Correcting someone's mistakes with a spelling error, a typo, a word omission, and possibly a factual error of your own doesn't seem worth the time.
Seriously, I struggled with whether "substiture" was a word I hadn't encountered before; even if it were, the structure still didn't make sense.
What's your reference if you meant what I think you did? I always thought the Pete in "For Pete's sake" referred to Saint Peter. This belief appears to be born out here. In which case the error would be to fail to capitalize it.
I typically try to reply to the content rather than form of posts, but this seemed the right topic for the type of reply I've authored.
I think you are pretty much spot-on in your first paragraph. Most organizations have some political agenda and while you or I may disagree as to the value of any particular agenda, utilization of the courts to achieve that agenda is a legitimate mechanism. The judicial branch exisits to interpret law (in cases where laws are vague), and to dertermine whether a given law is "legal" under state and federal constitutions.
In poor Terri Schiavo's case, the existing law weighed a spouse's rights higher than a parent's -- death row inmates are granted as many apeals as they are because that's the law. When a living will doesn't exist I believe we should, as a society, err on the side of caution but that means changing the law. Just as Utah's filtering law isn't a question of free speech (thanks again for reqiring honest thought of me) but rather is one of state vs. federal rights, the Schiavo case was one of spousal vs. parental rights.
I'm not very well informed about the California situation, but in Massachusettes, the state court ordered the legislature to rectify an inequality. They determined (based on a case brought to them) that under Massachusettes' constitution there could be no benefit (assorted spousal rights) extended to one class of people (heterosexuals) that wasn't also offered to another (homosexuals). They did not order the legislature to allow gay marriage. They ordered it to rectify the inequality (presumably, the legislature could have ended spousal rights for heterosexuals instead of creating civil unions which extended spousal rights to homosexuals). I don't see that as judicial tyranny -- they interpretted the state constitution based on a case brought before them. That's precisely why efforts are underway to ammend both the U.S. and various state constitutions -- that's the way to leave the court without recourse.
I think federal vs. state's rights does invoke civil liberties. It's my liberty (within certain parmeters) to do business unimpeded by a particular state's unique laws across state lines (btw -- I do agree that there are many cases where state law must trump federal law). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I do know who Justice Ginsburg is but did not know that she was instumental in the formation of the ACLU. Wow!
I don't see, though, how deciding Constitutional matters is "judicial tyranny." That's their job.
What are the other instances you're thinking of since you used the phrase, "just another example?"
Why should it be law that the provider offer filtering services when other alternatives exist (third party software or hardware)? I simply can't accept that a state legislature should force providers to implement pornography filtering.
Analogies are difficult; I did the best I could. Your phone/fax analogy suffers in that the Utah law filters web sites -- which a user must request to view. But I'm sure you recognized that. It's also dificult to guess someone's age and whether or not they have childern (I was born in 1963 but don't care to share any information about my family).
It is a civil liberties issue if you accept that interstate commerce is involved.
I do appreciate that you are arguing from a reasoned position. I just disagree with your reasoning.
Thanks for bringing the discussion back into the realm of civility.
I understand that many posters have very strong opinions about this issue. My strong opinion is that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. Utah wants to meet its constituant's desires (good for them!) but there are already plenty of ways for parents to control their children's exposure to pornography (I still don't get why sexually explicit material is the most threatening material their kids need protection from).
ISPs are not like retail stores. They don't choose what data is available to their customers. I think a useful analogy is to imagine if I wanted to print a bunch of pamphlets to distrubute. Would you expect Xerox to include technology that prevented me from including sexually explicit material in them based on which homes I planned on distributing them to if I planned on distrubuting them in Utah?
I believe the sole responsibility to determine what one's children are exposed to lies with the parents (or legal guardian). Let the market determine if there is enough demand for an ISP to provide this as an additional service. If the market in a given area isn't responsive to its customer's needs, then an alternate business could be created, or customers may purchase their own product if they can't monitor their kids.
Ha! One man's education on the issue is another's education on spelling.
There is no doubt that there are multiple issues here. The state ostensibly wants to protect minors by requiring ISPs to provide a mechansim (aside from those which already exist -- parental or guardian monitoring, retail products, etc.) to block sites on the AG's list. That's issue one (won't somebody please think of the children?). Issue two, regulation of interstate commerce, belongs exclusively to the federal government (article 1, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). Free speech is the third issue though the ACLU my not be pursuing the case on those grounds.
I don't see this as terribly far removed from China's efforts to censor open discussion -- it's a short step to begin censoring other content as well. How is exposure to pornography more damaging than exposure to Neonazi propaganda? There has always been controversy surrounding exactly what constitutes pornography. Let parents control what their children view on-line, don't legislate it.
Please try to reply (if you care to) without resorting to invective. Are you having a bad day? Reasonable discussion should be possible
Have you ever tried to get support from Microsoft? It's pay per incident. Why would they wish to shut off an additional revenue stream? Here are prices for typical home users. Granted, they provide 90 days free support for retail purchases but I suspect M$ would much rather users run pirated copies of Windows than FOSS. Prices go up based on what you need support for (server software, Office, etc.)
You and I *are* in complete agreement on the last point. As to the first, I guess I'm saddened that any religeon needs to be part of government. True, laws are generally based on morals. And for many many people, moral authority is sourced in a deity. I just wish it were otherwise.
I approve of your sentiment though I'll take issue with a couple of pieces of your argument.
...how can the "Islamic radicals" take over?
It doesn't take a majority to rule a country...just enough thugs with guns, and no scruples about butchering and torturing the opposition.
Without that support, the people will get what they want...
I doubt it. I really can't claim any special knowledge of what the Iraqi people want but if they're anything like me they probably want a reasonable compromise between freedom and stability with a strong dose of equality and oportunity. Would it take longer to achieve with or without the U.S. military presence (given that they're already there)?
it's none of my fucking business!
Well sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. If I
witness my neighbor beating his wife and endangering his children do I not have an obligation to do something? I think so. But I'd want to be damn sure of the situation before I act (Bush's rationalization -- WMDs -- was clearly wrong. How he hasn't been impeached boggles my mind).
suppose one day some other superpower with say a billion men showed up and...
I like this one best. The shoe on the other foot really isn't comfortable. Personanlly, I'd welcome our new atheistic overlords (so long as they were atheists!).
Furthermore, in most states in the U.S. you *can* sue for his threat to withhold pay. That's right -- you can sue for the threat -- not just the act. I agree w/Trip, though, the bridge has already been burned by your boss. Get some real legal council. Do you have a job description? Does it say you are responsible for hiring your replacement? Was anyone else present to witness this idiot's threats and slander? Document what you can by writing a log with dates. That will go a long way in court should you need to go that route, even if the data you put in the log is uncorroborated.
An interesting thought experiment...Fortunately, part of the theory of Natural Selection (though not at Darwin's time) is that there exists a mechanism for the evolution of species -- genetics. By examining how genetic material has changed in your experiment, you in fact provide further support for the theory. In each of the cases you describe, one can show that Natural Selection remains consistant as does the mechanism of inheritance, mutation, etc. By repeating the thought experiment a thousand times (or some other sutible number) and examining the changes in the genetic structure of the organism, one could theoretically disprove Natural Selection -- if no changes in the organism's DNA ever occured and all died, or if some other effect was shown to be responsible for the organism's continued survival, you'd have gone a long way toward undermining the current theory of evolution.
The nature of scientific theory is such that all are constantly subject to modification (if not rejection). In your counter example you have chosen an excellent case study. Newton's theory of Gravity was in fact disproved -- The theory of relativity shows that the instantaneous transmition of the force of gravity is untenable. While gravity itself was not disproved, the proposed mechanism was.
Your statement that theories must be disprovable is extreme. Theories make predictions. Those predictions must be disprovable and if they are disproved, then the theory is subject to revision or rejection.
Inteligent Design as a theory is a paradigm shift (it would overturn current consensus in the scientific community). Therefore, the burden of proof lies with proponants of the "new" theory.
One of the key points you fail to note about science's predictive power relating to past events is that it does make predictions about the future as well.
If an archeologist finds a bit of partially uncovered bone and hypothesizes, "this is a 6,000,000 year old bit of dinosaur rib" there are a number of implicit predictions based on evolutionary theory that can be made and tested: if it's 6,000,000 years old then rocks tested in the surrounding strata *will* also be found to be 6,000,000 years old; if it is a rib then it *will* curve in such a manner; if it belongs to a dinosaur, it *will* be consistant with other dinosaur bones, etc., etc. Note the use of future tense. Discoveries about the past do allow scientists to make testable predictions about future results.
Inteligent Design cannot make similar predictions (unless the prediction is simply, "we will continue to find complexity") and therefore is not science.
The concept behind the Turing test is that if we wish to determine whether or not a machine can think, then we must define the conditions that allow us to determine if anything is thinking. We accept (most) human conversations as involving thought on the other participant's side during a conversation of sufficient complexity. Therefore, if in a conversation with a machine, we are unable to distinguish between a machine's responses an an actual human's, then the machine is said to have passed the test. Intelligence and thinking are two different things.
Nobody "owns" letters either. But if you order them in the same way as say "War and Peace", then you're guilty of plagerism at best and copyright infringement at worst. Sorry, but unless you can prove the originality of the ordering of your zeros and ones, you're just copying someone else's work and while I think the RIAA is way overstepping reasonableness here, they *do* own the rights to the order of the bits.
Ethical accounting practices will be demanded by stockholders.
An increase in value of their holdings is all that is demanded by stock holders IMHO. And unethical behavior all too often increases value long enough to make it worthwhile.
I'm a former UUNET (bought by WorldCom) employee and your assertion is invalidated by much of corporate history. Most CEOs, board members, senior officers are heavily invested in the companies they run. The main motive ascribed to Ebbers' fiddling with the books was that if the stock price fell too far he might loose his home since its purchase was leveraged with his massive stock holdings. The board paid off his loan but that didn't end the shinanagans (sp?).
If greed wasn't a more powerful motivator than ethics for far too many corporations then there wouldn't be a need for any regulations whatsoever.
You're not really advocating that are you?
To the topic:
I spent months doing SOX work for Three-Five Systems in Phoenix and while it did require enormous resource expenditure in IT, I approve of the concept of demanding that CEOs legally state their responsibility for the "cleanliness" of the company's books.
I've only used it to retrieve two hunks of software. I'll erase and destroy my Debian and Knoppix since I didn't get them legitimately. Thanks for the heads up.
LOL.. "...only marginally a part of IT..." Sorry to remind you that M$ still has the largest share of the market. We might wish it was different but your comment is ridiculous.
Slashdot Mirror
There have been recent studies (my Google search isn't refined enough to turn one up though) that indicate that brain developement of long-term consequence recognition isn't complete until around age twenty-five.
I guess that's why we (U.S. centric comment) allow minors to drive, and eighteen-year-olds into the military and allow them to vote!
I've got to agree with you on this...How Monkey manages to spread his karma-whoring legs wider than ninety drgrees remains a mystery to me. Yet he still manages to do it.
-1, Offtopic -- I'll take it!
English is tough.
You can spell "fish" phonetically the following way:
ghyti
The "gh" makes the "f" sound as it does in the word "laugh".
The "y" makes the "i" sound as it does in the word "physics".
The "ti" makes the "sh" sound as it does in the word "station".
The idea of the above comes from the play "Pygmalion" (which was later adapted to the musical "My FairLady").
I had to go to a bit of trouble to make sense of the below. That kind of insensibility is what makes spelling/grammar important during written communication.
...it's the plural of pete as a substiture people in general and possesive...
Did you mean "...as a substitute for people in general and possessive...?" How difficult would it have been to read your own message carefully enough to spare me the time trying to figure it out? Simple typographical errors are easy to overlook (one third of yours was obviously that), but when I read a finished product like the above, I have to assume that the writer either
1) just didn't care
2) was in such a hurry to post that he/she didn't bother to preview
3) was just lazy.
If you don't care enough to make your message understandable (while correcting someone else's post at that!), why should I care what you have to say? If you're in a hurry to post, I have to wonder why. If it's laziness, why'd you bother to write at all? Correcting someone's mistakes with a spelling error, a typo, a word omission, and possibly a factual error of your own doesn't seem worth the time.
Seriously, I struggled with whether "substiture" was a word I hadn't encountered before; even if it were, the structure still didn't make sense.
What's your reference if you meant what I think you did? I always thought the Pete in "For Pete's sake" referred to Saint Peter. This belief appears to be born out here. In which case the error would be to fail to capitalize it.
I typically try to reply to the content rather than form of posts, but this seemed the right topic for the type of reply I've authored.
I think you are pretty much spot-on in your first paragraph. Most organizations have some political agenda and while you or I may disagree as to the value of any particular agenda, utilization of the courts to achieve that agenda is a legitimate mechanism. The judicial branch exisits to interpret law (in cases where laws are vague), and to dertermine whether a given law is "legal" under state and federal constitutions.
In poor Terri Schiavo's case, the existing law weighed a spouse's rights higher than a parent's -- death row inmates are granted as many apeals as they are because that's the law. When a living will doesn't exist I believe we should, as a society, err on the side of caution but that means changing the law. Just as Utah's filtering law isn't a question of free speech (thanks again for reqiring honest thought of me) but rather is one of state vs. federal rights, the Schiavo case was one of spousal vs. parental rights.
I'm not very well informed about the California situation, but in Massachusettes, the state court ordered the legislature to rectify an inequality. They determined (based on a case brought to them) that under Massachusettes' constitution there could be no benefit (assorted spousal rights) extended to one class of people (heterosexuals) that wasn't also offered to another (homosexuals). They did not order the legislature to allow gay marriage. They ordered it to rectify the inequality (presumably, the legislature could have ended spousal rights for heterosexuals instead of creating civil unions which extended spousal rights to homosexuals). I don't see that as judicial tyranny -- they interpretted the state constitution based on a case brought before them. That's precisely why efforts are underway to ammend both the U.S. and various state constitutions -- that's the way to leave the court without recourse.
I think federal vs. state's rights does invoke civil liberties. It's my liberty (within certain parmeters) to do business unimpeded by a particular state's unique laws across state lines (btw -- I do agree that there are many cases where state law must trump federal law). It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I do know who Justice Ginsburg is but did not know that she was instumental in the formation of the ACLU. Wow!
I don't see, though, how deciding Constitutional matters is "judicial tyranny." That's their job.
What are the other instances you're thinking of since you used the phrase, "just another example?"
Why should it be law that the provider offer filtering services when other alternatives exist (third party software or hardware)? I simply can't accept that a state legislature should force providers to implement pornography filtering.
Analogies are difficult; I did the best I could. Your phone/fax analogy suffers in that the Utah law filters web sites -- which a user must request to view. But I'm sure you recognized that. It's also dificult to guess someone's age and whether or not they have childern (I was born in 1963 but don't care to share any information about my family).
It is a civil liberties issue if you accept that interstate commerce is involved.
I do appreciate that you are arguing from a reasoned position. I just disagree with your reasoning.
Thanks for bringing the discussion back into the realm of civility.
I understand that many posters have very strong opinions about this issue. My strong opinion is that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. Utah wants to meet its constituant's desires (good for them!) but there are already plenty of ways for parents to control their children's exposure to pornography (I still don't get why sexually explicit material is the most threatening material their kids need protection from).
ISPs are not like retail stores. They don't choose what data is available to their customers. I think a useful analogy is to imagine if I wanted to print a bunch of pamphlets to distrubute. Would you expect Xerox to include technology that prevented me from including sexually explicit material in them based on which homes I planned on distributing them to if I planned on distrubuting them in Utah?
I believe the sole responsibility to determine what one's children are exposed to lies with the parents (or legal guardian). Let the market determine if there is enough demand for an ISP to provide this as an additional service. If the market in a given area isn't responsive to its customer's needs, then an alternate business could be created, or customers may purchase their own product if they can't monitor their kids.
Ha! One man's education on the issue is another's education on spelling.
There is no doubt that there are multiple issues here. The state ostensibly wants to protect minors by requiring ISPs to provide a mechansim (aside from those which already exist -- parental or guardian monitoring, retail products, etc.) to block sites on the AG's list. That's issue one (won't somebody please think of the children?). Issue two, regulation of interstate commerce, belongs exclusively to the federal government (article 1, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). Free speech is the third issue though the ACLU my not be pursuing the case on those grounds.
I don't see this as terribly far removed from China's efforts to censor open discussion -- it's a short step to begin censoring other content as well. How is exposure to pornography more damaging than exposure to Neonazi propaganda? There has always been controversy surrounding exactly what constitutes pornography. Let parents control what their children view on-line, don't legislate it.
Please try to reply (if you care to) without resorting to invective. Are you having a bad day? Reasonable discussion should be possible
How is it positive change to limit free speech?
Please provide links!
Have you ever tried to get support from Microsoft? It's pay per incident. Why would they wish to shut off an additional revenue stream? Here are prices for typical home users. Granted, they provide 90 days free support for retail purchases but I suspect M$ would much rather users run pirated copies of Windows than FOSS. Prices go up based on what you need support for (server software, Office, etc.)
From TFA:
...using ideas gleaned from WMIC, but using the .NET Framework as its core component instead.
.NET...I did a quick google and couldn't find any real info except this.
I thought there was some concern about M$'s longterm plans for
I guess they're planning on sticking with it.
You and I *are* in complete agreement on the last point. As to the first, I guess I'm saddened that any religeon needs to be part of government. True, laws are generally based on morals. And for many many people, moral authority is sourced in a deity. I just wish it were otherwise.
I approve of your sentiment though I'll take issue with a couple of pieces of your argument.
...how can the "Islamic radicals" take over?
It doesn't take a majority to rule a country...just enough thugs with guns, and no scruples about butchering and torturing the opposition.
Without that support, the people will get what they want...
I doubt it. I really can't claim any special knowledge of what the Iraqi people want but if they're anything like me they probably want a reasonable compromise between freedom and stability with a strong dose of equality and oportunity. Would it take longer to achieve with or without the U.S. military presence (given that they're already there)?
it's none of my fucking business!
Well sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. If I witness my neighbor beating his wife and endangering his children do I not have an obligation to do something? I think so. But I'd want to be damn sure of the situation before I act (Bush's rationalization -- WMDs -- was clearly wrong. How he hasn't been impeached boggles my mind).
suppose one day some other superpower with say a billion men showed up and...
I like this one best. The shoe on the other foot really isn't comfortable. Personanlly, I'd welcome our new atheistic overlords (so long as they were atheists!).
Furthermore, in most states in the U.S. you *can* sue for his threat to withhold pay. That's right -- you can sue for the threat -- not just the act. I agree w/Trip, though, the bridge has already been burned by your boss. Get some real legal council. Do you have a job description? Does it say you are responsible for hiring your replacement? Was anyone else present to witness this idiot's threats and slander? Document what you can by writing a log with dates. That will go a long way in court should you need to go that route, even if the data you put in the log is uncorroborated.
An interesting thought experiment...Fortunately, part of the theory of Natural Selection (though not at Darwin's time) is that there exists a mechanism for the evolution of species -- genetics. By examining how genetic material has changed in your experiment, you in fact provide further support for the theory. In each of the cases you describe, one can show that Natural Selection remains consistant as does the mechanism of inheritance, mutation, etc. By repeating the thought experiment a thousand times (or some other sutible number) and examining the changes in the genetic structure of the organism, one could theoretically disprove Natural Selection -- if no changes in the organism's DNA ever occured and all died, or if some other effect was shown to be responsible for the organism's continued survival, you'd have gone a long way toward undermining the current theory of evolution.
The nature of scientific theory is such that all are constantly subject to modification (if not rejection). In your counter example you have chosen an excellent case study. Newton's theory of Gravity was in fact disproved -- The theory of relativity shows that the instantaneous transmition of the force of gravity is untenable. While gravity itself was not disproved, the proposed mechanism was.
Your statement that theories must be disprovable is extreme. Theories make predictions. Those predictions must be disprovable and if they are disproved, then the theory is subject to revision or rejection.
Inteligent Design as a theory is a paradigm shift (it would overturn current consensus in the scientific community). Therefore, the burden of proof lies with proponants of the "new" theory.
One of the key points you fail to note about science's predictive power relating to past events is that it does make predictions about the future as well. If an archeologist finds a bit of partially uncovered bone and hypothesizes, "this is a 6,000,000 year old bit of dinosaur rib" there are a number of implicit predictions based on evolutionary theory that can be made and tested: if it's 6,000,000 years old then rocks tested in the surrounding strata *will* also be found to be 6,000,000 years old; if it is a rib then it *will* curve in such a manner; if it belongs to a dinosaur, it *will* be consistant with other dinosaur bones, etc., etc. Note the use of future tense. Discoveries about the past do allow scientists to make testable predictions about future results.
Inteligent Design cannot make similar predictions (unless the prediction is simply, "we will continue to find complexity") and therefore is not science.
The concept behind the Turing test is that if we wish to determine whether or not a machine can think, then we must define the conditions that allow us to determine if anything is thinking. We accept (most) human conversations as involving thought on the other participant's side during a conversation of sufficient complexity. Therefore, if in a conversation with a machine, we are unable to distinguish between a machine's responses an an actual human's, then the machine is said to have passed the test. Intelligence and thinking are two different things.
Nobody "owns" letters either. But if you order them in the same way as say "War and Peace", then you're guilty of plagerism at best and copyright infringement at worst. Sorry, but unless you can prove the originality of the ordering of your zeros and ones, you're just copying someone else's work and while I think the RIAA is way overstepping reasonableness here, they *do* own the rights to the order of the bits.
Ethical accounting practices will be demanded by stockholders.
An increase in value of their holdings is all that is demanded by stock holders IMHO. And unethical behavior all too often increases value long enough to make it worthwhile.
I'm a former UUNET (bought by WorldCom) employee and your assertion is invalidated by much of corporate history. Most CEOs, board members, senior officers are heavily invested in the companies they run. The main motive ascribed to Ebbers' fiddling with the books was that if the stock price fell too far he might loose his home since its purchase was leveraged with his massive stock holdings. The board paid off his loan but that didn't end the shinanagans (sp?).
If greed wasn't a more powerful motivator than ethics for far too many corporations then there wouldn't be a need for any regulations whatsoever.
You're not really advocating that are you?
To the topic:
I spent months doing SOX work for Three-Five Systems in Phoenix and while it did require enormous resource expenditure in IT, I approve of the concept of demanding that CEOs legally state their responsibility for the "cleanliness" of the company's books.
I've only used it to retrieve two hunks of software. I'll erase and destroy my Debian and Knoppix since I didn't get them legitimately. Thanks for the heads up.
Right U r!
I see the offer when I load google's main page but after multiple reloads the offer switches between:
"Google's free email service with 1 GB of space"
and
"Google's free email service with 1000 MB of space"
LOL.. "...only marginally a part of IT..." Sorry to remind you that M$ still has the largest share of the market. We might wish it was different but your comment is ridiculous.