Putting aside for a moment my belief that speech cannot cause violence, who defines whether a certain speech incites violence? Is it inciting violence to say "LET'S KILL BABYRAPERS!!"? That calls for violence, but not against a "protected group."
What about "A JEW ATE MY BABY!!" or "THAT DARKIE RAPED YOUR WIFE!!!"? Those don't explicitly call for violence, but many people may consider violence a reasonable response to these things.
What about "REPUBLICANS ARE FASCISTS!!" or "MEXICANS ARE STEALING OUR JOBS!!!"? Again, some people might think that violence is a reasonable response to these claims. Yet even if these statements incited violence, shouldn't they be protected political speech?
Incremental erosions of our freedoms is a Bad Thing (TM). What starts as a good natured attempt to keep the peace, only succeeds in giving the government power to control what we say and, eventually, how we think. Even if we agree that certain things should not be said, we should still support people's right to say them.
I've often wondered the same thing about drunk driving laws. If killing somebody in a car accident carries one penalty, why does killing somebody in a drunk driving accident carry a stiffer penalty? The answer that invariably comes back from whomever I am discussing this with is that the drunkenness somehow represents an intent to harm. And somehow, the intent makes it worse.
Setting aside the whole "thoughtcrimes" and "how do we know intent" arguments, why should intent-based crimes be punished worse? I don't know. But it is this way for several activities. The same action has different legal ramifications depending on intent. Murder versus man slaughter. Possession with intent to sell versus normal possession. Libel/slander versus free speech. Material support to terrorists versus donating to your local chapter of ELF. It even comes up in civil cases like contract and copyright. I'm sure you could come up with even more interesting examples.
At any rate, we are dealing with a moral hierarchy ingrained in nearly every aspect of our legal system over the course of centuries. Intent -- manifested as a particular context, pretext, or additional activity -- changes the nature of the crime in the eyes of the law. I don't know that I agree with the theory, but it's present in just about every branch of governance. Maybe it harkens back to Biblical days when Jesus said that lusting after a woman was morally equivalent to fornication. Who knows?
Perhaps the theory is that since somebody sought out this activity on the Internet, he is somehow more dangerous or heinous, because it is planned more deliberately. I don't know.
funny, I thought people in the US are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers. guess I must have been thinking of some other country
Actually, the explanation of "no machine = isn't running = no winning lottery numbers" makes perfect sense if you've read what he's suggesting. In fact, the few theoretical ways of making a time machine (e.g. Tipler Cylinder) all have this same problem, that it can't take you back further than the existance of the machine. Of course, I've only ever read about relativity based time machines, but quantum time machines would more than likely share this property. my brain hurts now.
Well, I RTFP'd and it looks like the interestingness algorithm is only going to get more confusing. It appears that the new algorithm will take into account "location" according to claim 50. Presumably that has to do with the recent addition of geotags to flickr. Not sure though. Did anybody notice how many independent claims are in this patent app? 15! And 74 independant ones. I don't normally deal with software patents, but isn't that a bit much?
How is this a troll? ArcherB is ironically pointing out the fact that several of Bush's stump speech components failed miserably in congress. That is pertinent to the conversation at hand because GP basically implied that Bush had great success in excercising party leverage in Congress. These three elements, along with border security, are great examples of exactly how little leverage he really ever had. He couldn't even get his own party to agree with him. Now he will have even less leverage.
I don't think so. I am glad the submitter gave us that parenthetical identifier because it immediately answered a question I had. I am more likely to think that Stephen Limbaugh is a knee-jerk-conservative, big-business-bitch based on his own judgements, rather than his brother's opinions. My brother and I have very different political views, and several people with siblings would say the same thing. Few people smart enough to read Slashdot would be dumb enough to allow an informative parenthetical to dictate their opinions.
I guess he's one of those damned activist judges his brother rails against all the time.
Actually, tracking which people take which exit and entrance ramps could help computer models used in designing the roads. It's not just about building more and bigger roads. You have to make sure to build the *right* roads. Let's say there's a certain exit ramp on the left that is frequently taken by people entering 1/2 mile earlier on the right. That might be more useful to the traffic engineer than just knowing two numbers: how many take the entrance ramp, and how many take the exit ramp.
In Houston, data like this could have been used to examine the clusterfuck that is the West Loop before they started adding all these extra ramps and lanes that still get clogged because people have to divebomb across 4 lanes of traffic just to stay on the road they want to be on. (pardon the run-on)
I love the idea of removing party designations, especially for judges. But I think that having an all write-in ballot would greatly reduce voter turnout. With those damn e-Slate machines, it's very hard to write in somebody's name. I think people would just give up and not vote at all. Maybe the candidates would legally change their names to "Rep Ublican" and "Demo Crat" to subvert the system.
Vote Kinky!
I fail to see how using an epithet makes you a racist. It may be a symptom of racism, but it may also be a symptom of misunderstanding or lack of knowledge. There was one guy not from the US that I worked with who used the n word, not because he was a racist (which he was not), but because he was unaware that it was offensive. The bottom line is that the use of words doesn't make you anything.
Conversely, not all racists use epithets. My dad never used the n word, but he wouldn't let us watch Family Matters or the Jeffersons. He didn't have any black friends and he didn't seem inclined to make any. He may not have even realized it, but he would say things about how bad such-and-such group were and didn't think twice about it.
The perfect voting machine would ask about your opinions on the issues and match that up with the right candidate for you. Maybe it would let you see the name of the candidate right before you confirm the ballot. It always amazes me when people feel strongly about something (eg, the Bill of Rights), but then find that they have voted in somebody who has dramatically different viewpoints on it (eg, W). They had several tests like this available on line during the 2004 election. I took it and confirmed that my candidate was the best choice for me.
Of course, this system is also prone to abuse.
Do you like motherhood and apple pie?
Y
Do you like Osama bin Laden?
N
Thank you for voting Republican. Have a nice day.
But on the other hand, the method could be used to greatly enhance the democratic process. Instead of just going by majority or plurality wins, the algorithm could actually decide who the best compromise candidate was. That is, it could find the guy who is most aligned with the voters opinions at large. When it comes to fixing the runoff system, this would be light years beyond IRV and Condorcet schemes.
I didn't just RTFA, I RTFP'd, too. And the paper's conclusion says this:
Although our findings are consistent with our hypothesis, we do not believe our findings represent definitive evidence for our hypothesis. We believe the only way to establish definitively whether or not early childhood television watching is a trigger for autism is to more directly test the hypothesis.... The finding that those diagnosed with autism had indeed watched more television would be subject to the criticism that maybe those prone to autism are more drawn to television viewing.
The conclusion then goes on to say that more studies should be done, and since there's nothing wrong with not watching TV, be "prudent" and act as if it were.
I would like to point out that if you look at their maps of rainfall and autism, only the WA map looks convincing. The others are not at all convincing, although the argument could be made that south CA is too hot to play outside, so the kids stay indoors. The bottom line is that scientists need to do more testing before announcing stuff like this. I know they need more grant money, but whipping soccer moms into a frenzy is not the best way to do it. People hear correlation and they automatically think causality. Then, since TV is causing autism, they clamor for their legislators to do something about it.
Do they order the police and national guard to round up all gang members and get them off of our streets?... And what happens when an individual police force tries to get tough on gangs? Civil lawsuits! The police "violated" these murderers', rapists', drug-dealers', and illegals' "rights."
...
I live in fear of my own government.
You seem concerned with the government stripping you of your rights, but you have no concern for the rights of others. I hate to break it to you, but gang bangers, murderers, and rapists have rights, too. It's a little thing called the Bill of Rights. It doesn't just apply to the good guys. We ALL have the right to associate (even people from El Salvador). We ALL have the right to a fair trial (even illegal imigrants). We ALL have the right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment (even rapists and murders).
People like you, who think that the government can take away rights from people just because they're from a different country or have a different skin tone than you, are the reason that the current Congress thinks it can get away with legislature like the bill we are talking about now. You cannot have it both ways. You either support the Bill of Rights and the rule of law, or you can support dragnet round-up of gangs, and mass incarceration and deportation. We cannot bypass due process. That sort of flagrant disregard for the law is what led to a Canadian citizen getting deported by the CIA to be tortured in Syria. Besides, some MS-13 members use deportation as a free trip home, and others use it as a recruitment technique. By the way, El Salvador is in Central America, not South America.
Please think of the implications of your accusations.
My guess is that the cops were either misinformed, or chose to misinform the public to trick people into driving better for fear of getting a ticket.
The devices you are talking about are technically cameras, in that they manipulate light onto a sensor. But not the type of camera that can see you or take note of your license plate if you run a red light. Mind you, those types of cameras exist, and are becoming quite common, but they are not the ones that change the signal for emergency vehicles. 3M , Tomar, and others. The light you described was probably telling the driver of the ambulance he had control of the intersection, as described here.
The cameras that take your picture look more like this.
That's got to be one of the most enlightening things I've read on the subject in quite a while. I've thought about the whole God/science/free will/fate thing, but never in these terms. Thanks for a new spin on the topic.
mine doesn't. TI (among others) has models that will retain roots where appropriate if the calculator is in "EXACT" mode. I used two of them through college, the TI-92 for algebraic things where the QWERTY was nice, and the TI-89, which was really nice for unit conversions. even before that I had programmed my TI-82 to give me actual square roots for solving quadratics.
Instead of square roots, just ask for a polynomial expansion approximation like you have to do in physics for determaning the relativistic effects of, say, flying in an airplane. If you try that with a calculator, you will get 0.00000000000000000000 every time. Of course that would not be the most accessible thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
What about "A JEW ATE MY BABY!!" or "THAT DARKIE RAPED YOUR WIFE!!!"? Those don't explicitly call for violence, but many people may consider violence a reasonable response to these things.
What about "REPUBLICANS ARE FASCISTS!!" or "MEXICANS ARE STEALING OUR JOBS!!!"? Again, some people might think that violence is a reasonable response to these claims. Yet even if these statements incited violence, shouldn't they be protected political speech?
Incremental erosions of our freedoms is a Bad Thing (TM). What starts as a good natured attempt to keep the peace, only succeeds in giving the government power to control what we say and, eventually, how we think. Even if we agree that certain things should not be said, we should still support people's right to say them.
Setting aside the whole "thoughtcrimes" and "how do we know intent" arguments, why should intent-based crimes be punished worse? I don't know. But it is this way for several activities. The same action has different legal ramifications depending on intent. Murder versus man slaughter. Possession with intent to sell versus normal possession. Libel/slander versus free speech. Material support to terrorists versus donating to your local chapter of ELF. It even comes up in civil cases like contract and copyright. I'm sure you could come up with even more interesting examples.
At any rate, we are dealing with a moral hierarchy ingrained in nearly every aspect of our legal system over the course of centuries. Intent -- manifested as a particular context, pretext, or additional activity -- changes the nature of the crime in the eyes of the law. I don't know that I agree with the theory, but it's present in just about every branch of governance. Maybe it harkens back to Biblical days when Jesus said that lusting after a woman was morally equivalent to fornication. Who knows?
Perhaps the theory is that since somebody sought out this activity on the Internet, he is somehow more dangerous or heinous, because it is planned more deliberately. I don't know.
funny, I thought people in the US are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers. guess I must have been thinking of some other country
I'm glad you got a laugh. :) For a second I was worried that might have come across a little dickheaded. (is that a word?)
I'm no rocket surgeon, but you're really thinking outside the grindstone with your cliché selection. I'll get off of my soap horse now.
a much smarter bet would be to just buy either law firm. That way no matter which side wins, he'd still get his cut.
Actually, the explanation of "no machine = isn't running = no winning lottery numbers" makes perfect sense if you've read what he's suggesting. In fact, the few theoretical ways of making a time machine (e.g. Tipler Cylinder) all have this same problem, that it can't take you back further than the existance of the machine. Of course, I've only ever read about relativity based time machines, but quantum time machines would more than likely share this property. my brain hurts now.
I made the mistake of reading that poem to my wife. She is still crying. damned pregnancy hormones.
Ha! I thought you were talking about Canada until I got to your second paragraph. I was thinking, "Geez, I had no idea Canada had such a strong army!"
I looked it up, and it turns out North Korea has more active troops than Russia (even more than Russia and Canada combined).
Well, I RTFP'd and it looks like the interestingness algorithm is only going to get more confusing. It appears that the new algorithm will take into account "location" according to claim 50. Presumably that has to do with the recent addition of geotags to flickr. Not sure though. Did anybody notice how many independent claims are in this patent app? 15! And 74 independant ones. I don't normally deal with software patents, but isn't that a bit much?
How is this a troll? ArcherB is ironically pointing out the fact that several of Bush's stump speech components failed miserably in congress. That is pertinent to the conversation at hand because GP basically implied that Bush had great success in excercising party leverage in Congress. These three elements, along with border security, are great examples of exactly how little leverage he really ever had. He couldn't even get his own party to agree with him. Now he will have even less leverage.
I guess he's one of those damned activist judges his brother rails against all the time.
In Houston, data like this could have been used to examine the clusterfuck that is the West Loop before they started adding all these extra ramps and lanes that still get clogged because people have to divebomb across 4 lanes of traffic just to stay on the road they want to be on. (pardon the run-on)
I love the idea of removing party designations, especially for judges. But I think that having an all write-in ballot would greatly reduce voter turnout. With those damn e-Slate machines, it's very hard to write in somebody's name. I think people would just give up and not vote at all. Maybe the candidates would legally change their names to "Rep Ublican" and "Demo Crat" to subvert the system. Vote Kinky!
I fail to see how using an epithet makes you a racist. It may be a symptom of racism, but it may also be a symptom of misunderstanding or lack of knowledge. There was one guy not from the US that I worked with who used the n word, not because he was a racist (which he was not), but because he was unaware that it was offensive. The bottom line is that the use of words doesn't make you anything. Conversely, not all racists use epithets. My dad never used the n word, but he wouldn't let us watch Family Matters or the Jeffersons. He didn't have any black friends and he didn't seem inclined to make any. He may not have even realized it, but he would say things about how bad such-and-such group were and didn't think twice about it.
This brings new meaning to the phrase "cum hoc ergo propter hoc."
that, too, can be done in print, thanks to the magic of flipbooks.
Of course, this system is also prone to abuse.
YNBut on the other hand, the method could be used to greatly enhance the democratic process. Instead of just going by majority or plurality wins, the algorithm could actually decide who the best compromise candidate was. That is, it could find the guy who is most aligned with the voters opinions at large. When it comes to fixing the runoff system, this would be light years beyond IRV and Condorcet schemes.
I would like to point out that if you look at their maps of rainfall and autism, only the WA map looks convincing. The others are not at all convincing, although the argument could be made that south CA is too hot to play outside, so the kids stay indoors. The bottom line is that scientists need to do more testing before announcing stuff like this. I know they need more grant money, but whipping soccer moms into a frenzy is not the best way to do it. People hear correlation and they automatically think causality. Then, since TV is causing autism, they clamor for their legislators to do something about it.
I was once "corrected" by a senior engineer when I wrote "try to" in a white paper. What a moron. I hate hypercorrections.
great... now i've got the music from the cantina stuck in my head.
People like you, who think that the government can take away rights from people just because they're from a different country or have a different skin tone than you, are the reason that the current Congress thinks it can get away with legislature like the bill we are talking about now. You cannot have it both ways. You either support the Bill of Rights and the rule of law, or you can support dragnet round-up of gangs, and mass incarceration and deportation. We cannot bypass due process. That sort of flagrant disregard for the law is what led to a Canadian citizen getting deported by the CIA to be tortured in Syria. Besides, some MS-13 members use deportation as a free trip home, and others use it as a recruitment technique. By the way, El Salvador is in Central America, not South America.
Please think of the implications of your accusations.
My guess is that the cops were either misinformed, or chose to misinform the public to trick people into driving better for fear of getting a ticket.
The devices you are talking about are technically cameras, in that they manipulate light onto a sensor. But not the type of camera that can see you or take note of your license plate if you run a red light. Mind you, those types of cameras exist, and are becoming quite common, but they are not the ones that change the signal for emergency vehicles. 3M , Tomar, and others. The light you described was probably telling the driver of the ambulance he had control of the intersection, as described here.
The cameras that take your picture look more like this.
That's got to be one of the most enlightening things I've read on the subject in quite a while. I've thought about the whole God/science/free will/fate thing, but never in these terms. Thanks for a new spin on the topic.
Instead of square roots, just ask for a polynomial expansion approximation like you have to do in physics for determaning the relativistic effects of, say, flying in an airplane. If you try that with a calculator, you will get 0.00000000000000000000 every time. Of course that would not be the most accessible thing to do.