This is simple, its because you and your family are the stupid ones. The people with broken strapes are freaking genius. Buy the cheapest console on the market, fling the controller at the expensive TV, get new TV free. These people are the best and brightest minds our society has to offer! I bet some of them even hooked the Wii up to multiple TVs in the house to get more than one free TV out of the deal! Get a life you uncreative loser.
And a damned good thing too else it would be terribly difficult to buy 4 movies on 1 DVD for $2 at the "Haji shop" right outside the various bases in Upickastan.:)
But seriously...I am so sick of people trashing the military. They need to quit their bitching and accept the blame themselves. The military doesn't exactly make policy decisions. That is done by the politicians, picked by the people. If the military is doing things the don't like, then they need to deal with their politicians, not cry about the military who is just doing what it was told to do.
Beyond that, the unfortunate truth is that while necessity is the mother of all invention, war is the time of greatest necessity. A great deal of the technology that we have today has stemmed from military necessity. Computers, Internet, Radar, tons of vehicle related things, air travel, weather satellites (believe it or not they weren't all spy satellites), all of our space stuff.
YOU!!! You must be a perfect person for this question! We were discussing that stupid "The Internet is for Porn" song the other day and how the porno industry has driven so much technology and law from behind the scenes (no pun intended). Digital photography, display technology, copyright laws, distribution methods (vhs,dvd,internet), etc. And in the birth of the the net it HAD to have happened, and we figure in military research labs it had to have happened fairly early... So...what was it? What was the very first porn transfer?:)
"Military-industrial complex" refers to an entirely different realm of things and has nothing to do with what is being discussed here. The military industrial complex is the unfortunately ever growing sector of the economy that relies on war for profit. Defense contractors, weapons makers, research and development, etc etc etc. If you want to be upset about the military, go look at what is really happening. The military is being drastically downsized and replaced by civilian contractors. We are commercializing the military because it is more "cost effective" (read profitable). People should be beating the doors down on Capitol Hill for this if they don't want a forever war (The Global War on Terror!!!). The military part comes from the fact that the military is the largest consumer of said products. Eisenhower predicted our future when he spoke about the growth of the military industrial complex. Once war becomes profitable, we will only have war.
The corporation controls the government, government controls the military, obviously there is a military tie to the discussion is extremely weak at best. I mean...the government controls a lot of things. The government controls the guys picking up trash on the highway...so are they involved too? Maybe the Dept of Transportation is involved too, busy hauling 'pipes' for the internet?
Open Source information is scanning things like news and discussion boards. A corporate world lockdown would all but destroy any underground type boards. Don't think for a second that hacking/cracking sites get shut down as they are found, many many organizations sign up and participate to monitor the things. Open Source intelligence isn't about crypto or anything like that. Open Source info is about standing in the mall near a military base and listening to GIs talk about shit they shouldn't be discussing but isn't really classified. It is all about OPSEC. Don't think for a minute that our greatest secrets are all secured through nice pretty crypto. I mean if it was all done by a machine then sure...but unfortunately there are a great number of humans involved in any organization that has secrets, and they talk, and post, and whatever else.
I realize this is slashdot and all, and being anti military is popular, but what the hell does the military have to do with this? I mean seriously what in the hell does the military have to do with the legal system, the copyright nonsense, the MPAA/RIAA, DRM, and so on? Or is this just another cheap shot at the military to get slashdot bonus points. The day the military has the kind of control to really be making these kinds of decisions you will have alot more to worry about than a free and open internet. You can throw around the police state thing all you want (and to an extent, you are right, lots of nations are inching closer and closer) but we are absolutely not a police state.
1. The military brought you the internet, it wasn't the telco and media industry. DARPAnet anyone?
2. The military and intelligence agencies are going to be very interested in a very open internet because its the perfect source for open source intelligence (and that has nothing to do with software).
3. The telco and media industries are going to be very interested in controlling all there is to be seen on the net.
4. In fact large portions of the "industrial complex" part of your little equation are much more interested in having an open/neutral net than a telco/media controlled net.
You have some good points, so please don't 'catapult the propaganda'.
Hereyou go. Just one reference out of many many studies. Alcohol involves a chemical effect that has negative consequences on a developing brain. Your claims of "don't put words in my mouth" are a bit of a joke because it is fairly clear what you believe the military is all about (killing random strangers) and that you are trying to draw a parallel between negative effects of drinking on a developing human brain and military service on a developing human brain.
So yes, some people in the military do kill, and I'm sure it has a profound negative effect on many of them. However, the positive effects on a developing human are going to FAR outweigh the negative, but that would require abandoning the "killing random strangers" mentality. How about every single individual going through basic training...again you have to give up the idea that its all just mindless conditioning, that you can't possibly learn discipline and the ability to make important decisions quickly, and how to lead people, and so on. Financial responsibility, independence, accountability...the list is huge.
I'm not putting words in your mouth. YOU were the one that drew the stupid parallel between the negative effects of the "going to kill random strangers" military service and drinking. I do agree that entering without a little thought about the matter isn't that great. Interestingly enough there have been great military men to say that conflict is good for the military because it weeds out the cowards who are only there to feed on the government. But the claims of indefinite is a little goofy, because when you sign up you sign a contract, and it is fairly clear on how long you will be in. If you really do support the military it would serve everyone better to not make such insulting remarks about our purpose.
And yet, if you haven't served, I would submit that you have no business commenting on that is required in the line of service. I may never be able to convince you that the military isn't a bunch of murderous thugs, but that is your own warped, ungrateful reality and not my problem. There are chaplains, chaplains assistance, medical personnel, legal personnel, mechanics, communications people, civil engineering, researchers, engineers and the list goes on and on and on. In fact there is a significant portion of the military that CANNOT kill a stranger, that it is a war crime for them to participate in any form of attack. But folks so bent on "you gotta be a killer, military baaad" probably wouldn't understand, because its not about facts and reality, its about uneducated, unwarranted, ungrateful, irrational emotional response. So I'm sorry if I challenged your belief that everyone that serves is a murderer, that the military has never done anything good, or whatever else, I don't care, and I certainly don't care for another whining response, but I will offer this advice. Even if you don't believe the military has done anything to protect your lifestyle of sitting and typing on a computer how evil the military is, I suggest you throw out everything in your life that the military has brought you. No computer, no flying (can't use radar), no GPS, no none of that. Further, while you are free to spout your beliefs wherever you please here, I suggest not traveling to certain parts of the world, you may be surprised by the lack of amusement from the government officials there. Finally, there are large groups of survivors of various wars, natural disasters, and other tragedies that might take offense to calling everyone in the military murderers. I mean being the first on the ground after hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes...we are just there to get some easy practice murdering injured people right?
I frequently cat bleh | grep whatever just because it was the first way I learned and reflexively do it that way. grep whatever * actually tells me what file it found the match in, rather than just showing me the line. So while piping cats isn't inherently bad, there is frequently better ways to do it that also give more correct output, but it depends on what the desired output is. However "I grepped all the files for 'bleh'" sounds infinitely less disturbing than "I grepped what came out of the cat I piped"
If you would be so kind as to remove the rose tinted glasses I would like to point something out. The reason there are no Christian lead terrorists is because "Christians" denounce them as non christians and go on about how that doesn't count against them. But when Muslims denounce fundamentalist terrorists it doesn't matter because the mainstream media picks up and trumpets "Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslim" and other insane shit. Go look up the fundamentalist christian groups bombing the bejesus out of the locals in India. Incidentally there are more than just those few parts of the bible that condone the death and murder and whatnot. In fact the old testament is packed full of such intolerance and hate and murder and slavery and insanity. Exodus and Leviticus are two of my favorites for humerous reading. No surprise that the fundamentalist groups from muslims, christians, and jews all pretty much latch on to this stuff. Even though they don't share all of the same writings, they share that era. All of the hate and insanity and justifications for murder and convert or die behavior came from roughly the same time frame and same area, and they just have different writings surrounding it.
And I think Marx and crew were pretty much demonized quite well in the red scare era of American history. McCarthyism anyone? Evil communists? You do remember at least reading about all of this right?
Fundamentally humanity is fairly flawed and is horrifically xenophobic so it doesn't take a whole lot of justification to get Clan A to find threatening differences in Clan B and proceed with hundreds of years of killing eachother. So take a step back and try not to flag wave for any side, because EVERY side is equally horrible. I mean good God fearing Christians lead Manifest Destiny...and has spawned nice charity actions like handing out small pox blankets, and convert or don't eat programs. Noone is innocent.
I wasn't really commenting on the ID part so much since I pretty much find it an abomination and that as a military service member I believe these type of freedom squashing things cheapens my life considerably. Because, like it or not, knee jerk left or flag waving right, people in America stay free because the military is there, without the military some insane dictator would have squashed us long ago. Now unfortunately through the inaction of the people the military is being sent far and away for things largely unrelated to our defense and the elected officials are hacking and slashing on the constitution. So many people like to decry the military, but the constitution is clear when it sets out the military is to be controlled by the public, which it is through the election system...so if people don't like the military "killing random strangers" as mentioned in another reply, suck it up, quit your bitching, and go vote people in that wont send the military to go do it. The military only follows orders, and while some will cry that the military should disobey those orders...well...unfortunate reality is that you need to fix the orders, because a military that disobeys orders frequently winds up creating a military controlled state by doing their own thing and replacing those giving orders.
That aside, the age thing is a physiological thing, the brain just isn't done developing at younger ages. Alcohol and things can hamper that development considerably. So you do want those people in the military because they are younger, stronger, and learn faster, so long as they aren't drinking themselves stupid every night. (I'm absolutely not anti drinking, I'm just anti over drinking)
As far as DoD 1015.10, I have never actually seen that, and I am not aware of the drinking age being under 21 on base anywhere overseas. But DoD level directives such as this are the loosest allowed standard, and commanders are free to make stricter policies. If a commander so chooses he can say no drinking anywhere on base for any age.
Other than that your Selective Service thing is a bit of a stretch. Its like saying I signed up for a $200 million dollars because I bought a lottery ticket. The draft has been unused for a long while, and it isn't even a given thing, even during a draft you may never get called. So Selective Service is not "signing up to die for your country", it at best is "signing up to for a slim chance to be signed up to die for your country". And if you really want to get nit picky "the object is not to die for one's country, it's to make the other poor son of a bitch die for his.":)
Just on the drinking age. I agree on some level it is fairly counter intuitive to say you can die for your country but you can't drink, however, there are numerous studies that show alcohol has a more profound effect on a developing brain of the days of youth. Further, 18-21yr olds are known for their poor decision making capabilities and are frequently the ones to die from doing stupid things while drinking, like driving, stunts, or not putting down the bottle before drinking themselves to death. Not that 21+ is THAT much better at making decisions, but statistically they are a bit less likely to do something monumentally stupid.
So my only modification would be that if you sign up to die for your country you get a reduced drinking age, everyone else who makes the argument "I can sign up to die for my country but I can't drink" will be left with the response "Well you didn't, so you can't". Even then I'm not sure that it is the greatest idea anyways.
Net Neutrality means the ISP can't block stuff like that. Net Neutrality insures a 'dumb' internet with no QoS. They want Net Neutrality to go away so they can prioritize their VoIP services over the free/cheap ones, they can prioritize their streaming video over everyone else, and they can collect ransom payments from sites that want to maintain availability. "So Google...you better fork up the cash if you don't want Yahoo to be more accessible than you" "Hey Yahoo, if you don't want to be impossible to load compared to Google you better pay your 'QoS fees'"... They would make more money by strangling it out of the consumers (and Google, CNN, etc are really all consumers as well in this regard). So without Net Neutrality there is no "customer picks up the bill" because it would cost them less to leave it alone, the problem is they would have to compete with other internet services instead of choking the others out because they own "the pipes". So in reality Net Neutrality means the consumer pays LESS because noone is going to pay for $50/mo VoIP services from Verizon when you can get it for $5/mo elsewhere (assuming Verizon isn't allowed to artifically degrade the quality of their competitors because they own 'the pipes')
1. I honestly know a guy that voted for Bush in the first election because he saw a Snickers commercial where the talking Donkey said "I invented the internet!" and he knew that was a lie... This was his decision making information that lead him to the polls...
2. You know a guy actively working against Net Neutrality every day... Well since you say "know" and not "stabbed" I think you have much more productive things you should be doing right now rather than posting on slashdot. Unless of coarse you are ok with the fact that Slashdot is probably high on the list for the telcos to do "Quality of Service" for. Your geek card is here by temporarily suspended until you can provide proof that you at least slapped him a few times...with a large blunt object.
I can't wait for the phone companies to decide what VoIP networks are trying to take advantage of me and protect me with their own VoIP services. I mean I can't wait for them to try and "clean" up the internet so only fine upstanding companies in good standing can deliver their content to me...oh wait. I can't wait for them to decide what I can watch on TV...oh damn.
These companies are trying damned hard to be content providers because it changes alot of the rules, gives them ALOT more control, and basically lets them swing you around by your balls whenever they want and do it with the protection of the government. These companies are infrastructure, and need to be taught to stay the hell out of content. When they get in the business of content we get things like the Tiered internet, and commercials about how "Net Neutrality means the consumer pays more". I think them extending the fiber network to the home is definetly very cool, and definetly the way of the future, I just don't want them to be on either end of the fiber.
Uhm...weight supported by skeleton is worse than weight supported by muscle, in fact that is one of the major causes of joint problems is people don't have a strong enough muscular structure to support their weight and instead are using the fallback of bone structure to support it. When your weight is supported by bone structure your joints tend to grind together and wear down much faster, when its supported by muscle your bones 'float' and cause considerably less strain on your joints.
I was going to question your assertion about running down prey because we really aren't all that efficient at running, however, I did some digging and found that while we really aren't well designed for running in the grand scheme of things, we are well designed for a running biped, and are more efficient than our prey which is really what matters when it comes down to it. So I am only challenging your assertion that we are better than most animals, because I find that highly suspect since as far as predators go we really aren't all that efficient. It is interesting though that realistically the more efficient runners (aside from taking more work to catch if you can) are going to be the tougher and less appetizing types. Piggies and whatnot who are not efficient runners at all, and are one of the key animals cited in research of your claims, are considerably more tasty animals since while muscular they also tend to be considerably less lean than the efficient runner types and fat is the primary thing that makes meat tasty.:)
That having been said, the running things down applies more to the not so large animals, however we most certainly are designed to take down the big animals from the tool using and communal aspect of human behavior. It is far more efficient for a small group of tool using hunters to kill a large animal and feed an even larger number of tribe members. Chasing down smaller animals all day you would have to bring back hordes of piggies to feed your village. All in all I find it amusing that people bad mouth hunting as blood thirsty sport, and then go to the store and buy their meats like it wasn't a living animal that was slaughtered and packaged. Even more so because at least the hunter runs some risk of being killed by the animal, because large animals like that are terribly dangerous to tangle with even when you have a gun, and the animal has a chance of avoiding its fate of being on a dinner plate. Store bought meat is raised in a cage and slaughtered at will with no chance of escape, and nowhere near the risk to the humans involved. In fact, hunting is FAR more efficient than going to the store in terms of energy expenditure and return.
Ok so because the new model cars have 10,000 buttons on the steering wheel that makes it an example of why complexity is better because its selling? How about all of the studies about distracted drivers being as bad if not worse than drunk drivers? Just because you can hype up the market about stuff and get things to sell does not mean its a better product. Cigarettes sell quite well, they also kill you. Alcohol does the same. I mean there are tons of other examples of products that sell well that are still bad. What people want, what people need, and what is good for people are all fairly different things. I have seen things talk about "Users spend more time at sites because complexity is good", or maybe its because the only email account they have is yahoo because its free and they are technically uninclined and it takes them 20 minutes to figure out how to get what they need.
I think its funny that I was marked as troll but whatever. My point is if its a situation where "its the only thing they have on him" its a losing situation anyways. My point is if they have a laundry list of things he is less likely to be able to weasel out of all of them on stupid technicalities and is likely to be tagged on something. If you read the article it causes them to be hit with evading reporting and turns into felony charges, loss of probation/parole, etc. Yes changing your email/IM is trivial, I doubt it will go terribly far from preventing anything other than people losing political positions come reelection time. However, its an additional charge to slap a sex offender with to help keep them locked up. Which is terribly difficult these days it seems, "oh but their rights have been violated! You can't track them and restrict where they live" I for one am a firm supporter of lock them up for life instead of messing around with all of that "rights violating" tracking and restrictions. But the recitivism rate of that kind of stuff is through the roof, yes you can rehab most criminals, but rehabing most sex offenders is a waste of time, it just doesn't work in most cases.
It is very easy to talk about how much of a waste it is if you have been fortunate to have never had these types of events touch your life in any way. You might change your mind when you have had friends/family involved and watch the offender get the sentence reduced by pleading guilty. Or even better, confessed to multiple things only to have the charges dropped from something like 24 counts down to 1. Then you might believe in there should be more pieces that they can be hit with to make sure things stick. When the investigator says "Well 7 years is a long time" explaining that nothing will happen beyond being forced to register for 7 years...explain to the victim about how a lifetime of their suffering equates to 7 years of largely meaningless tracking.
You mean like charging that one guy with tax evasion instead of all the murders, thefts, etc? It means if I catch Mr. Sex Offender IMing my daughter and it turns out he is a registered offender and didn't register that name...his ass his grass and he didn't even have to rape my daughter for me to be able to start the process of putting him away.
It amuses me how/.ers lament how broken our judicial system is, how lawyers can manipulate things to make the seemingly obvious charges turn into utter nonsense, how SCO and IBM have been battling the same insanity for years, how patents continue to wind up in court with armies of lawyers keeping the fight going for ages. I mean on some days everyone on/. understands how broken the system is and how a single seemingly obvious charge often won't work, yet something like this comes up and people start going on how stupid and pointless it is. It isn't stupid and pointless, its because the good lawyers know that 'silver bullet' method of doing things doesn't work, and if they stick to that one seemingly obvious charge all kinds of criminals will walk the streets because the lawyer at the other table will use 'reasonable doubt' to stop things. Or have we forgotten how OJ was innocent in criminal proceedings because of 'reasonable doubt', guilty in civil proceedings, and is now writing a damned book about "Well, I didn't do it, but if I DID do it, I would have done it like this".
1. Users are the larger factor in vulnerability to this type of thing.
2. Mac users are an entirely different type than Windows users
3. Mac users are only interested in buying into the hip and trendy
4. Companies trying to get Mac user money already know this and don't need to study habits
This is works out well because since they aren't being targeted Mac users tend to get uppity about how Macs are the best, thus increasing the hip and trendy value to other potential Mac users and gathering the next generation of Starbucks sippping, one button clicking, iPod listening hipsters willing to spend twice the value of the computer to get the pretty white Mac logo and the trendy points with their hipster friends.
Sounds to me like someone is very left leaning and history challenged. But hey that seems to be the best way to get +1 Left Leaning Slashdot Groupthink.
"If the U.S. didn't get into wars all the time, then wouldn't that both save lives and cost less money?". That is patently false. I could come up with examples of this all day long, but we will stick with a few basic ones. First we have the transportation industry, planes, trains, and automobiles all have gone through great leaps and bounds in technological advancement due to wartime needs. Manufacturing processes have gone through leaps and bounds due to wartime needs. The interstate was built because of wartime needs. Radar was developed primarily for wartime needs. The very computer you are typing on was developed due to wartime needs. The internet you are connected to...DARPAnet. Things developed by the military have expanded our manufacturing and exports an incredible ammount and has kept us the largest exporter for a long time. The trade defecit that everyone is so fond of talking about exists because we import more than we export because we are the worlds largest consumers by a large margin.
Now, to be fair, if you just aren't aware of the military history beyond the middle east (we have had a military for a very long time). One of the biggest "inventions" to come out of our jumping around out there has been "Gee, we should put air conditioning in our tanks when we go to the desert". We have had quite a few advances in vehicle and personnel armor, but that doesn't exactly have alot of effect on the general populace beyond police forces etc. The shenanagins going on now should hardly be held up as the example for how the military operates. This IS another vietnam, not in the bloodiness or all the ways people like to compare the 2 wars, but in the fact that its a bunch of dumb politicians making stupid decisions and tying the military up in bullshit and not letting anyone get anything meaningful done. This war has been run primarily by Rummy and the Shrub (aka. "the decider") and has been one stupid "Mission Accomplished" style PR circus after another. We are still winning the war, hyuk, see we have a pretty banner that says so, and we are gunna have another press conference to deny the obvious and explain we are going to "stay the course" in getting precious little accomplished). Original estimates for this mess was $50-100B and were going to be paid back inside 2 years by Iraqi oil revenue...5 years later and something like 300B later, they are finally saying its looking like more 500+B and STILL won't admit they totally fucked this mess up.
Slashdot Mirror
This is simple, its because you and your family are the stupid ones. The people with broken strapes are freaking genius. Buy the cheapest console on the market, fling the controller at the expensive TV, get new TV free. These people are the best and brightest minds our society has to offer! I bet some of them even hooked the Wii up to multiple TVs in the house to get more than one free TV out of the deal! Get a life you uncreative loser.
And a damned good thing too else it would be terribly difficult to buy 4 movies on 1 DVD for $2 at the "Haji shop" right outside the various bases in Upickastan. :)
But seriously...I am so sick of people trashing the military. They need to quit their bitching and accept the blame themselves. The military doesn't exactly make policy decisions. That is done by the politicians, picked by the people. If the military is doing things the don't like, then they need to deal with their politicians, not cry about the military who is just doing what it was told to do.
Beyond that, the unfortunate truth is that while necessity is the mother of all invention, war is the time of greatest necessity. A great deal of the technology that we have today has stemmed from military necessity. Computers, Internet, Radar, tons of vehicle related things, air travel, weather satellites (believe it or not they weren't all spy satellites), all of our space stuff.
YOU!!! You must be a perfect person for this question! We were discussing that stupid "The Internet is for Porn" song the other day and how the porno industry has driven so much technology and law from behind the scenes (no pun intended). Digital photography, display technology, copyright laws, distribution methods (vhs,dvd,internet), etc. And in the birth of the the net it HAD to have happened, and we figure in military research labs it had to have happened fairly early... So...what was it? What was the very first porn transfer? :)
"Military-industrial complex" refers to an entirely different realm of things and has nothing to do with what is being discussed here. The military industrial complex is the unfortunately ever growing sector of the economy that relies on war for profit. Defense contractors, weapons makers, research and development, etc etc etc. If you want to be upset about the military, go look at what is really happening. The military is being drastically downsized and replaced by civilian contractors. We are commercializing the military because it is more "cost effective" (read profitable). People should be beating the doors down on Capitol Hill for this if they don't want a forever war (The Global War on Terror!!!). The military part comes from the fact that the military is the largest consumer of said products. Eisenhower predicted our future when he spoke about the growth of the military industrial complex. Once war becomes profitable, we will only have war.
The corporation controls the government, government controls the military, obviously there is a military tie to the discussion is extremely weak at best. I mean...the government controls a lot of things. The government controls the guys picking up trash on the highway...so are they involved too? Maybe the Dept of Transportation is involved too, busy hauling 'pipes' for the internet?
Open Source information is scanning things like news and discussion boards. A corporate world lockdown would all but destroy any underground type boards. Don't think for a second that hacking/cracking sites get shut down as they are found, many many organizations sign up and participate to monitor the things. Open Source intelligence isn't about crypto or anything like that. Open Source info is about standing in the mall near a military base and listening to GIs talk about shit they shouldn't be discussing but isn't really classified. It is all about OPSEC. Don't think for a minute that our greatest secrets are all secured through nice pretty crypto. I mean if it was all done by a machine then sure...but unfortunately there are a great number of humans involved in any organization that has secrets, and they talk, and post, and whatever else.
I realize this is slashdot and all, and being anti military is popular, but what the hell does the military have to do with this? I mean seriously what in the hell does the military have to do with the legal system, the copyright nonsense, the MPAA/RIAA, DRM, and so on? Or is this just another cheap shot at the military to get slashdot bonus points. The day the military has the kind of control to really be making these kinds of decisions you will have alot more to worry about than a free and open internet. You can throw around the police state thing all you want (and to an extent, you are right, lots of nations are inching closer and closer) but we are absolutely not a police state.
1. The military brought you the internet, it wasn't the telco and media industry. DARPAnet anyone?
2. The military and intelligence agencies are going to be very interested in a very open internet because its the perfect source for open source intelligence (and that has nothing to do with software).
3. The telco and media industries are going to be very interested in controlling all there is to be seen on the net.
4. In fact large portions of the "industrial complex" part of your little equation are much more interested in having an open/neutral net than a telco/media controlled net.
You have some good points, so please don't 'catapult the propaganda'.
Hereyou go. Just one reference out of many many studies. Alcohol involves a chemical effect that has negative consequences on a developing brain. Your claims of "don't put words in my mouth" are a bit of a joke because it is fairly clear what you believe the military is all about (killing random strangers) and that you are trying to draw a parallel between negative effects of drinking on a developing human brain and military service on a developing human brain.
So yes, some people in the military do kill, and I'm sure it has a profound negative effect on many of them. However, the positive effects on a developing human are going to FAR outweigh the negative, but that would require abandoning the "killing random strangers" mentality. How about every single individual going through basic training...again you have to give up the idea that its all just mindless conditioning, that you can't possibly learn discipline and the ability to make important decisions quickly, and how to lead people, and so on. Financial responsibility, independence, accountability...the list is huge.
I'm not putting words in your mouth. YOU were the one that drew the stupid parallel between the negative effects of the "going to kill random strangers" military service and drinking. I do agree that entering without a little thought about the matter isn't that great. Interestingly enough there have been great military men to say that conflict is good for the military because it weeds out the cowards who are only there to feed on the government. But the claims of indefinite is a little goofy, because when you sign up you sign a contract, and it is fairly clear on how long you will be in. If you really do support the military it would serve everyone better to not make such insulting remarks about our purpose.
And yet, if you haven't served, I would submit that you have no business commenting on that is required in the line of service. I may never be able to convince you that the military isn't a bunch of murderous thugs, but that is your own warped, ungrateful reality and not my problem. There are chaplains, chaplains assistance, medical personnel, legal personnel, mechanics, communications people, civil engineering, researchers, engineers and the list goes on and on and on. In fact there is a significant portion of the military that CANNOT kill a stranger, that it is a war crime for them to participate in any form of attack. But folks so bent on "you gotta be a killer, military baaad" probably wouldn't understand, because its not about facts and reality, its about uneducated, unwarranted, ungrateful, irrational emotional response. So I'm sorry if I challenged your belief that everyone that serves is a murderer, that the military has never done anything good, or whatever else, I don't care, and I certainly don't care for another whining response, but I will offer this advice. Even if you don't believe the military has done anything to protect your lifestyle of sitting and typing on a computer how evil the military is, I suggest you throw out everything in your life that the military has brought you. No computer, no flying (can't use radar), no GPS, no none of that. Further, while you are free to spout your beliefs wherever you please here, I suggest not traveling to certain parts of the world, you may be surprised by the lack of amusement from the government officials there. Finally, there are large groups of survivors of various wars, natural disasters, and other tragedies that might take offense to calling everyone in the military murderers. I mean being the first on the ground after hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes...we are just there to get some easy practice murdering injured people right?
I frequently cat bleh | grep whatever just because it was the first way I learned and reflexively do it that way. grep whatever * actually tells me what file it found the match in, rather than just showing me the line. So while piping cats isn't inherently bad, there is frequently better ways to do it that also give more correct output, but it depends on what the desired output is. However "I grepped all the files for 'bleh'" sounds infinitely less disturbing than "I grepped what came out of the cat I piped"
If you would be so kind as to remove the rose tinted glasses I would like to point something out. The reason there are no Christian lead terrorists is because "Christians" denounce them as non christians and go on about how that doesn't count against them. But when Muslims denounce fundamentalist terrorists it doesn't matter because the mainstream media picks up and trumpets "Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslim" and other insane shit. Go look up the fundamentalist christian groups bombing the bejesus out of the locals in India. Incidentally there are more than just those few parts of the bible that condone the death and murder and whatnot. In fact the old testament is packed full of such intolerance and hate and murder and slavery and insanity. Exodus and Leviticus are two of my favorites for humerous reading. No surprise that the fundamentalist groups from muslims, christians, and jews all pretty much latch on to this stuff. Even though they don't share all of the same writings, they share that era. All of the hate and insanity and justifications for murder and convert or die behavior came from roughly the same time frame and same area, and they just have different writings surrounding it.
And I think Marx and crew were pretty much demonized quite well in the red scare era of American history. McCarthyism anyone? Evil communists? You do remember at least reading about all of this right?
Fundamentally humanity is fairly flawed and is horrifically xenophobic so it doesn't take a whole lot of justification to get Clan A to find threatening differences in Clan B and proceed with hundreds of years of killing eachother. So take a step back and try not to flag wave for any side, because EVERY side is equally horrible. I mean good God fearing Christians lead Manifest Destiny...and has spawned nice charity actions like handing out small pox blankets, and convert or don't eat programs. Noone is innocent.
I wasn't really commenting on the ID part so much since I pretty much find it an abomination and that as a military service member I believe these type of freedom squashing things cheapens my life considerably. Because, like it or not, knee jerk left or flag waving right, people in America stay free because the military is there, without the military some insane dictator would have squashed us long ago. Now unfortunately through the inaction of the people the military is being sent far and away for things largely unrelated to our defense and the elected officials are hacking and slashing on the constitution. So many people like to decry the military, but the constitution is clear when it sets out the military is to be controlled by the public, which it is through the election system...so if people don't like the military "killing random strangers" as mentioned in another reply, suck it up, quit your bitching, and go vote people in that wont send the military to go do it. The military only follows orders, and while some will cry that the military should disobey those orders...well...unfortunate reality is that you need to fix the orders, because a military that disobeys orders frequently winds up creating a military controlled state by doing their own thing and replacing those giving orders.
:)
That aside, the age thing is a physiological thing, the brain just isn't done developing at younger ages. Alcohol and things can hamper that development considerably. So you do want those people in the military because they are younger, stronger, and learn faster, so long as they aren't drinking themselves stupid every night. (I'm absolutely not anti drinking, I'm just anti over drinking)
As far as DoD 1015.10, I have never actually seen that, and I am not aware of the drinking age being under 21 on base anywhere overseas. But DoD level directives such as this are the loosest allowed standard, and commanders are free to make stricter policies. If a commander so chooses he can say no drinking anywhere on base for any age.
Other than that your Selective Service thing is a bit of a stretch. Its like saying I signed up for a $200 million dollars because I bought a lottery ticket. The draft has been unused for a long while, and it isn't even a given thing, even during a draft you may never get called. So Selective Service is not "signing up to die for your country", it at best is "signing up to for a slim chance to be signed up to die for your country". And if you really want to get nit picky "the object is not to die for one's country, it's to make the other poor son of a bitch die for his."
Yes, because in my father's 20 years in the military he killed TONS of random strangers...0
In my 5 years of military service I have also killed TONS of random strangers...also 0
In fact the total kills for my entire 400+ man squadron is...you guessed it...also 0
So thank you for your knee jerk reaction...because some of us are fairly middle of the road...you just make anyone opposing the far right look stupid.
Just on the drinking age. I agree on some level it is fairly counter intuitive to say you can die for your country but you can't drink, however, there are numerous studies that show alcohol has a more profound effect on a developing brain of the days of youth. Further, 18-21yr olds are known for their poor decision making capabilities and are frequently the ones to die from doing stupid things while drinking, like driving, stunts, or not putting down the bottle before drinking themselves to death. Not that 21+ is THAT much better at making decisions, but statistically they are a bit less likely to do something monumentally stupid.
So my only modification would be that if you sign up to die for your country you get a reduced drinking age, everyone else who makes the argument "I can sign up to die for my country but I can't drink" will be left with the response "Well you didn't, so you can't". Even then I'm not sure that it is the greatest idea anyways.
Net Neutrality means the ISP can't block stuff like that. Net Neutrality insures a 'dumb' internet with no QoS. They want Net Neutrality to go away so they can prioritize their VoIP services over the free/cheap ones, they can prioritize their streaming video over everyone else, and they can collect ransom payments from sites that want to maintain availability. "So Google...you better fork up the cash if you don't want Yahoo to be more accessible than you" "Hey Yahoo, if you don't want to be impossible to load compared to Google you better pay your 'QoS fees'"... They would make more money by strangling it out of the consumers (and Google, CNN, etc are really all consumers as well in this regard). So without Net Neutrality there is no "customer picks up the bill" because it would cost them less to leave it alone, the problem is they would have to compete with other internet services instead of choking the others out because they own "the pipes". So in reality Net Neutrality means the consumer pays LESS because noone is going to pay for $50/mo VoIP services from Verizon when you can get it for $5/mo elsewhere (assuming Verizon isn't allowed to artifically degrade the quality of their competitors because they own 'the pipes')
1. I honestly know a guy that voted for Bush in the first election because he saw a Snickers commercial where the talking Donkey said "I invented the internet!" and he knew that was a lie... This was his decision making information that lead him to the polls...
2. You know a guy actively working against Net Neutrality every day... Well since you say "know" and not "stabbed" I think you have much more productive things you should be doing right now rather than posting on slashdot. Unless of coarse you are ok with the fact that Slashdot is probably high on the list for the telcos to do "Quality of Service" for. Your geek card is here by temporarily suspended until you can provide proof that you at least slapped him a few times...with a large blunt object.
I can't wait for the phone companies to decide what VoIP networks are trying to take advantage of me and protect me with their own VoIP services. I mean I can't wait for them to try and "clean" up the internet so only fine upstanding companies in good standing can deliver their content to me...oh wait. I can't wait for them to decide what I can watch on TV...oh damn.
These companies are trying damned hard to be content providers because it changes alot of the rules, gives them ALOT more control, and basically lets them swing you around by your balls whenever they want and do it with the protection of the government. These companies are infrastructure, and need to be taught to stay the hell out of content. When they get in the business of content we get things like the Tiered internet, and commercials about how "Net Neutrality means the consumer pays more". I think them extending the fiber network to the home is definetly very cool, and definetly the way of the future, I just don't want them to be on either end of the fiber.
Uhm...weight supported by skeleton is worse than weight supported by muscle, in fact that is one of the major causes of joint problems is people don't have a strong enough muscular structure to support their weight and instead are using the fallback of bone structure to support it. When your weight is supported by bone structure your joints tend to grind together and wear down much faster, when its supported by muscle your bones 'float' and cause considerably less strain on your joints.
:)
I was going to question your assertion about running down prey because we really aren't all that efficient at running, however, I did some digging and found that while we really aren't well designed for running in the grand scheme of things, we are well designed for a running biped, and are more efficient than our prey which is really what matters when it comes down to it. So I am only challenging your assertion that we are better than most animals, because I find that highly suspect since as far as predators go we really aren't all that efficient. It is interesting though that realistically the more efficient runners (aside from taking more work to catch if you can) are going to be the tougher and less appetizing types. Piggies and whatnot who are not efficient runners at all, and are one of the key animals cited in research of your claims, are considerably more tasty animals since while muscular they also tend to be considerably less lean than the efficient runner types and fat is the primary thing that makes meat tasty.
That having been said, the running things down applies more to the not so large animals, however we most certainly are designed to take down the big animals from the tool using and communal aspect of human behavior. It is far more efficient for a small group of tool using hunters to kill a large animal and feed an even larger number of tribe members. Chasing down smaller animals all day you would have to bring back hordes of piggies to feed your village. All in all I find it amusing that people bad mouth hunting as blood thirsty sport, and then go to the store and buy their meats like it wasn't a living animal that was slaughtered and packaged. Even more so because at least the hunter runs some risk of being killed by the animal, because large animals like that are terribly dangerous to tangle with even when you have a gun, and the animal has a chance of avoiding its fate of being on a dinner plate. Store bought meat is raised in a cage and slaughtered at will with no chance of escape, and nowhere near the risk to the humans involved. In fact, hunting is FAR more efficient than going to the store in terms of energy expenditure and return.
Ok so because the new model cars have 10,000 buttons on the steering wheel that makes it an example of why complexity is better because its selling? How about all of the studies about distracted drivers being as bad if not worse than drunk drivers? Just because you can hype up the market about stuff and get things to sell does not mean its a better product. Cigarettes sell quite well, they also kill you. Alcohol does the same. I mean there are tons of other examples of products that sell well that are still bad. What people want, what people need, and what is good for people are all fairly different things. I have seen things talk about "Users spend more time at sites because complexity is good", or maybe its because the only email account they have is yahoo because its free and they are technically uninclined and it takes them 20 minutes to figure out how to get what they need.
I was using Wird to type that post.
I think its funny that I was marked as troll but whatever. My point is if its a situation where "its the only thing they have on him" its a losing situation anyways. My point is if they have a laundry list of things he is less likely to be able to weasel out of all of them on stupid technicalities and is likely to be tagged on something. If you read the article it causes them to be hit with evading reporting and turns into felony charges, loss of probation/parole, etc. Yes changing your email/IM is trivial, I doubt it will go terribly far from preventing anything other than people losing political positions come reelection time. However, its an additional charge to slap a sex offender with to help keep them locked up. Which is terribly difficult these days it seems, "oh but their rights have been violated! You can't track them and restrict where they live" I for one am a firm supporter of lock them up for life instead of messing around with all of that "rights violating" tracking and restrictions. But the recitivism rate of that kind of stuff is through the roof, yes you can rehab most criminals, but rehabing most sex offenders is a waste of time, it just doesn't work in most cases.
It is very easy to talk about how much of a waste it is if you have been fortunate to have never had these types of events touch your life in any way. You might change your mind when you have had friends/family involved and watch the offender get the sentence reduced by pleading guilty. Or even better, confessed to multiple things only to have the charges dropped from something like 24 counts down to 1. Then you might believe in there should be more pieces that they can be hit with to make sure things stick. When the investigator says "Well 7 years is a long time" explaining that nothing will happen beyond being forced to register for 7 years...explain to the victim about how a lifetime of their suffering equates to 7 years of largely meaningless tracking.
You mean like charging that one guy with tax evasion instead of all the murders, thefts, etc? It means if I catch Mr. Sex Offender IMing my daughter and it turns out he is a registered offender and didn't register that name...his ass his grass and he didn't even have to rape my daughter for me to be able to start the process of putting him away.
/.ers lament how broken our judicial system is, how lawyers can manipulate things to make the seemingly obvious charges turn into utter nonsense, how SCO and IBM have been battling the same insanity for years, how patents continue to wind up in court with armies of lawyers keeping the fight going for ages. I mean on some days everyone on /. understands how broken the system is and how a single seemingly obvious charge often won't work, yet something like this comes up and people start going on how stupid and pointless it is. It isn't stupid and pointless, its because the good lawyers know that 'silver bullet' method of doing things doesn't work, and if they stick to that one seemingly obvious charge all kinds of criminals will walk the streets because the lawyer at the other table will use 'reasonable doubt' to stop things. Or have we forgotten how OJ was innocent in criminal proceedings because of 'reasonable doubt', guilty in civil proceedings, and is now writing a damned book about "Well, I didn't do it, but if I DID do it, I would have done it like this".
It amuses me how
Moderation
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30% Funny
30% Overrated
20% Troll
Wow...I was just joking...guess I touched a nerve of some uppity emo trendsetting hipster Mac users.
1. Users are the larger factor in vulnerability to this type of thing.
2. Mac users are an entirely different type than Windows users
3. Mac users are only interested in buying into the hip and trendy
4. Companies trying to get Mac user money already know this and don't need to study habits
This is works out well because since they aren't being targeted Mac users tend to get uppity about how Macs are the best, thus increasing the hip and trendy value to other potential Mac users and gathering the next generation of Starbucks sippping, one button clicking, iPod listening hipsters willing to spend twice the value of the computer to get the pretty white Mac logo and the trendy points with their hipster friends.
The beauty of the 2nd amendment is that you don't need it until the government tries to take it away.
Sounds to me like someone is very left leaning and history challenged. But hey that seems to be the best way to get +1 Left Leaning Slashdot Groupthink.
"If the U.S. didn't get into wars all the time, then wouldn't that both save lives and cost less money?". That is patently false. I could come up with examples of this all day long, but we will stick with a few basic ones. First we have the transportation industry, planes, trains, and automobiles all have gone through great leaps and bounds in technological advancement due to wartime needs. Manufacturing processes have gone through leaps and bounds due to wartime needs. The interstate was built because of wartime needs. Radar was developed primarily for wartime needs. The very computer you are typing on was developed due to wartime needs. The internet you are connected to...DARPAnet. Things developed by the military have expanded our manufacturing and exports an incredible ammount and has kept us the largest exporter for a long time. The trade defecit that everyone is so fond of talking about exists because we import more than we export because we are the worlds largest consumers by a large margin.
Now, to be fair, if you just aren't aware of the military history beyond the middle east (we have had a military for a very long time). One of the biggest "inventions" to come out of our jumping around out there has been "Gee, we should put air conditioning in our tanks when we go to the desert". We have had quite a few advances in vehicle and personnel armor, but that doesn't exactly have alot of effect on the general populace beyond police forces etc. The shenanagins going on now should hardly be held up as the example for how the military operates. This IS another vietnam, not in the bloodiness or all the ways people like to compare the 2 wars, but in the fact that its a bunch of dumb politicians making stupid decisions and tying the military up in bullshit and not letting anyone get anything meaningful done. This war has been run primarily by Rummy and the Shrub (aka. "the decider") and has been one stupid "Mission Accomplished" style PR circus after another. We are still winning the war, hyuk, see we have a pretty banner that says so, and we are gunna have another press conference to deny the obvious and explain we are going to "stay the course" in getting precious little accomplished). Original estimates for this mess was $50-100B and were going to be paid back inside 2 years by Iraqi oil revenue...5 years later and something like 300B later, they are finally saying its looking like more 500+B and STILL won't admit they totally fucked this mess up.