Heck! I could trace letters from a printed document and compile the letter forms into a type face, that would be breaking copyright too.
It wouldn't actually; you can't copyright a typeface, at least in the US. What's copyrighted is the font, which consists of the instructions for rendering that typeface.
It's also kind of slow loading pages (enough that I notice, whereas with firefox 1.5 I don't notice).
This may not apply to you, but it often looks like that because Opera starts rendering pages before they're fully loaded (by default, anyway) while Firefox waits until it has the full thing. This leads to Opera sometimes feeling slower even if it finishes first, because.
As I said, this may not apply in your case. FF 1.5 might actually be faster; I don't know about that version.
I get what you mean, I think, but isn't that a flaw in the browser? Your custom stylesheet is meant to override the defaults & the developer's wishes, so why the hell doesn't it take priority? The entire thing should have a priority higher than !important anyway!
The developer has every right to say how he wants his work displayed, but not to enforce that - that's why user stylesheets exist, to let you override the developer's wishes & browser defaults. If the user stylesheet isn't applied, that's not the developer's fault, it's the browser's.
Of course, sites which require certain fonts are plainly & simply bad. I've never actually come across one of those though, & don't really believe they exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Thanks, that first one did work. I never would have thought of it myself... I kind of wrote off the Set Program Access & Defaults panel ages ago - the actual 'setting as default' part wouldn't work for me from there. So simple, yet so hidden from me.
I've never been able to do that last bit - I can get rid of every one except the built-in icon on the desktop. You can hide it from the desktop, but if you open My Computer or something & hit backspace, it's displayed in the virtual folder at the top of the Windows directory tree.
Do you know how to turn that off completely? If you could tell me, that'd be great... I have a feeling it can be done but I'm not sure.
This means, of course, Bush winning is Nader's fault, which is really unfortunate, since it would be nice to have a viable more-than-two-party system.
Easy fix: move to a preferential voting system.
To be honest, I've never been able to see why the US uses it's all-or-nothing absolutist system instead - surely if you care about the will of the people, you won't completely disregard anybody who votes for a third option as the current system does? And in the same light, any complaints about a preferential system being hard to manage are bogus as well: not only is it not much more of a hassle, that hassle is irrelevant if you want to give the people a voice.
Then again, maybe there is some good reason to stick with what's currently used...? Eh, I dunno.
Personally, I always think most of it was probably added in by those very people in power. Most of it's in the Old Testament, right? So it could easily have been added over the years by whoever led the Jews at any given time. Even the New Testament is vulnerable to changes early on.
Note: I am a Christian, I just don't believe that God personally oversaw every word, making sure it was just right & all that crap legalistic people spout. "The Word of God" isn't a literal name.
What are we supposed to think when a lunatic like this spews ridiculous garbage and there is no massive Christian outcry? To us, it looks an awful lot like you agree with him.
Unfortunately, a lot of us do agree with him. I think it's a pretty small percentage, but there are a lot of Christians.
I try to counter the impression that we're all like him when I see it, but it's hard. People just don't want to listen to it, either the fundies or the ones associating them with Christianity as a whole. In general, people are not open-minded or liberal, however they may label themselves. The worst I ever came across was a 16 year old atheist on a forum... man, was he dense. Couldn't cope with the idea that you could believe in God without accepting the Bible as 100% accurate in every single way.
Still, I don't believe the majority of Christians are like Jack. If most of them knew what he was saying, they'd probably disregard him as the moron he is.
I probably should have thought more before asking that question - but everything you're saying about crappy parenting, though I know intellectually that it happens, seems surreal. Your idea of 'quality time' seems to just be The Way Things Ought To Be(TM), if you know what I mean. It's just the natural state of affairs in my head.
Actually it's what you said about sporting events which made me understand... it's hard to explain but for me that embodies shallow & meaningless relationships.
On rereading this, the last paragraph comes across as being far more arrogant than I intended, but I can't see how to rephrase it without increasing that... so, yeah, sorry about that.
This points up an interesting concept: can a virus be protected under the DMCA? Can delving into its bits be considered an IP violation? Hmmm...
I would say yes; I would also say you'd be an idiot to admit you'd written it. Just because someone else broke the law as well doesn't mean you're off the hook.
The choice of words matters in Shakespeare, regardless of whether it might be considered 'proper' English.
This reminds me of Asimov's short story 'The Monkey's Finger.' It's about the mixed metaphor 'take arms against a sea of troubles,' & basically says that even though a 'host of troubles' is more correct English, 'sea' conveys the idea of vastness & unstoppable power so much better than 'host.'
Good story, get hold of copy. Then again, I've kind of spoilt half the story now. Still worth it.
Hmmmm... maybe the ability to believe in something supernatural? Not just actually having the belief anyway. Eh, good enough, I'll just accept I can't explain what I mean:(
Thanks SirPavlova, you've certainly got patience, I'll give you that!
I really am gonna quit bugging you with this stuff shortly.
Don't worry, it's interesting. Of course if you're getting bored stop by all means, but don't for my sake.
encumbered by spirituality
Sorry, just realized how offensive that could sound... sadly I have to say that because I don't believe any of that stuff, I can't help seeing it as a weakness. I don't mean to be offensive, but I have to be honest about this. Kind of like how you might relate to someone who is genuinely delusional - you don't want to offend, but on the other hand, you just can't see what they believe as anything other than unreal.
It does sound offensive, but the context took away the bite. It didn't seem intentionally offensive:) People who can't cope with unintentional offense are too common though, so fair enough disclaimer.
I'd also disagree with your wording there though... you seem to be actually referring to religion being the weakness. That's different to spirituality. It's hard to describe exactly what spirituality is, but all people seem to have it... is it the ability to entertain ideas which are purely abstract & irrational? I'm not sure how to explain it, but everyone's got it & religion is just one application. It's hard to even organise my thoughts on the subject, to be honest. Do you get what I mean?
You can argue that spirituality is a weakness separately, but it strikes me as a strength. Anything which allows you to think in different ways is a strength as long as you can analyse the way you're thinking, & know it for what it is.
It's late here 10:30pm, so I may be talking cr*p again. I know thats not all that late, but I've had long day. I should really go to bed.
Not that late? Too right it's not that late! Any time before two is early! Then again, I'm a freak in my sleeping patterns.
Heh. Curiously, I've been accused of the same myself, on occasion. I dunno, some things are important, thats all...
Too right!
I guess I've just got a problem with being "tarred with the same brush" as it were.
I understand where you're coming from there. I have a problem with being tarred with the same brush as the fundies in the US, & used to with the Catholics (I've gotten over that one to some extent, though I still disagree with them).
It's my conceit to imagine I'm not encumbered with any spiritual weaknesses.
Eh... it's only a weakness if you let it rule you. The same applies to rationalism - if you did everything totally rationally, you'd have no fun. For a great example, is it at all rational to go out & dig a hole in the middle of a paddock for no reason, just for the sake of it? No. But it sure as hell was fun. For a slightly more universal example, dangerous stuff is usually fun, but it's not rational. I'm sure you get what I'm saying anyway.
I'm not sure I believe this... I know I don't have a typical usage pattern, but most of what I get over P2P is video.
The same applies to a friend I have who has heaps of software, & the only thing he's legitimately paid for in years is Windows. Mountains of warez, but still video makes up most of it.
It's designed to cause fear, so yes, it's terrorism.
That doesn't mean anything much though... it's a dirty tactic, but 'terrorism' is an overblown concept. Al Qaeda may be much worse than the **AA, but that's because they're vicious killers into the bargain, not because of the terrorism aspect.
In other words, I agree with you that the attitude to accusations of terrorism in Washington is ridiculous.
I don't see a big difference between "I don't believe in God" and "I believe there is no God". They are two ways of saying the same thing - either way, I've heard about it, I've had it explained in various ways by people who do believe, and - I'm not convinced.
Yeah, well, I'm a pedant. There is a difference - it's just not what you'd normally be bothered considering, & most people use them interchangably. In practical terms I admit it might as well be the same.
I don't think "I believe there is no god" qualifies as "a set of rules or guides to how to behave", does it?
No, I don't think so either. Which is where the weakness of the argument comes from - it's hard to put what I think of as religion into words. Sometimes it seems I should be thinking atheists have faith but no religion instead. Either way there's something both theists & atheists have which agnostics don't.
And I can understand & relate to what you say about there being no religion whatsoever, with no further thought - that would make you an atheist/agnostic cross by my definitions, I guess. You give it no thought, but believe not... perfect proof of the problems with definitions.
Anyway, I'm glad you get what I was saying. It obviously needs further work, but I'm pretty sure it's (fairly close to) what people are thinking when they say atheism is a religion. Unless they're just stupid & can't accept the idea of no religion like you suggest, but that can't apply to all of them.
In general, I agree with you; all your point are valid. There's just a basic difference in opinion in that you either don't think it will be abused (I doubt you can be that naive) or that there are sufficient safeguards to deal with isolated incidents, where I feel that it inherently gives far too much potential for abuse as an institution. I admit I'm not heavily knowledgable about the US & Britain, but Australia's certainly not got any decent safeguards in its currently proposed legislation. The classical safeguard is the court, but these laws are removing courts from the equation, leading to the potential for basically autonomous action by the executive branch of government, with no judicial oversight.
It unfortunately puts me firmly in the crackpot brigade in they eyes of many, but I don't trust power. People are scum, & they will abuse it. Quite apart from that, people are prone to mistakes, & those will happen. Locking up an innocent is not OK, not even in this situation. They should have evidence first, & it should go through a court. It's inconvenient, terribly so, but it's the only way you can hope to even cut down on the potential for injustice.
internationally funded mass murderers
I tip my hat to you - that they're terrorists means nothing next to that they're murderers. I know this is off track, but that's one of my pet peeves with the whole thing, the emphasis put on the terrorism over the murder.
Or, we hand them over to the German courts, or the Spanish courts, or the Jordanian courts... you do see coverage of those trials, right?
Indeed I do. Not much, simply because I don't choose to watch a whole heap of it, but enough that I know it happens. I'm not redneck who only watches tabloid news. I watch the Australian ABC, usually.
Please keep your eye on the ball, here.
I've got it in sight, I just happen to think we should be looking at the other ones too.
Who said they don't have any evidence. We could have all the evidence in the world that you've got an apartment full of bomb-making supplies and blueprints of a local nursery school, and arrest you for that...
If they have evidence, why don't they charge you? The whole uproar is that you can be held without charge.
They could encrypt the data differently on each disc, & have the erasable part the key. Then they just need an ID number on each disk as well, & the NVRAM can store ID/key pairs. Then you'd not be able to distribute lists, there'd be too many possibilities.
Of course, they'd have a hard time pressing each disc differently, & it'd still be cracked & available in no time.
Slashdot Mirror
It wouldn't actually; you can't copyright a typeface, at least in the US. What's copyrighted is the font, which consists of the instructions for rendering that typeface.
This may not apply to you, but it often looks like that because Opera starts rendering pages before they're fully loaded (by default, anyway) while Firefox waits until it has the full thing. This leads to Opera sometimes feeling slower even if it finishes first, because .
As I said, this may not apply in your case. FF 1.5 might actually be faster; I don't know about that version.
I get what you mean, I think, but isn't that a flaw in the browser? Your custom stylesheet is meant to override the defaults & the developer's wishes, so why the hell doesn't it take priority? The entire thing should have a priority higher than !important anyway!
The developer has every right to say how he wants his work displayed, but not to enforce that - that's why user stylesheets exist, to let you override the developer's wishes & browser defaults. If the user stylesheet isn't applied, that's not the developer's fault, it's the browser's.
Of course, sites which require certain fonts are plainly & simply bad. I've never actually come across one of those though, & don't really believe they exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Thanks, that first one did work. I never would have thought of it myself... I kind of wrote off the Set Program Access & Defaults panel ages ago - the actual 'setting as default' part wouldn't work for me from there. So simple, yet so hidden from me.
Again, thanks!
I've never been able to do that last bit - I can get rid of every one except the built-in icon on the desktop. You can hide it from the desktop, but if you open My Computer or something & hit backspace, it's displayed in the virtual folder at the top of the Windows directory tree.
Do you know how to turn that off completely? If you could tell me, that'd be great... I have a feeling it can be done but I'm not sure.
Easy fix: move to a preferential voting system.
To be honest, I've never been able to see why the US uses it's all-or-nothing absolutist system instead - surely if you care about the will of the people, you won't completely disregard anybody who votes for a third option as the current system does? And in the same light, any complaints about a preferential system being hard to manage are bogus as well: not only is it not much more of a hassle, that hassle is irrelevant if you want to give the people a voice.
Then again, maybe there is some good reason to stick with what's currently used...? Eh, I dunno.
Personally, I always think most of it was probably added in by those very people in power. Most of it's in the Old Testament, right? So it could easily have been added over the years by whoever led the Jews at any given time. Even the New Testament is vulnerable to changes early on.
Note: I am a Christian, I just don't believe that God personally oversaw every word, making sure it was just right & all that crap legalistic people spout. "The Word of God" isn't a literal name.
Exactly. One sign of a good commentator (or a good anything, actually) is to know when & how to break the rules.
Unfortunately, a lot of us do agree with him. I think it's a pretty small percentage, but there are a lot of Christians.
I try to counter the impression that we're all like him when I see it, but it's hard. People just don't want to listen to it, either the fundies or the ones associating them with Christianity as a whole. In general, people are not open-minded or liberal, however they may label themselves. The worst I ever came across was a 16 year old atheist on a forum... man, was he dense. Couldn't cope with the idea that you could believe in God without accepting the Bible as 100% accurate in every single way.
Still, I don't believe the majority of Christians are like Jack. If most of them knew what he was saying, they'd probably disregard him as the moron he is.
Okay, now I know what you mean. Thanks.
I probably should have thought more before asking that question - but everything you're saying about crappy parenting, though I know intellectually that it happens, seems surreal. Your idea of 'quality time' seems to just be The Way Things Ought To Be(TM), if you know what I mean. It's just the natural state of affairs in my head.
Actually it's what you said about sporting events which made me understand... it's hard to explain but for me that embodies shallow & meaningless relationships.
On rereading this, the last paragraph comes across as being far more arrogant than I intended, but I can't see how to rephrase it without increasing that... so, yeah, sorry about that.
What on earth is 'meaningful, constructive' time?
I'm not a parent, & I'd honestly like to know the answer. I can't see what qualifies... what separates the meaningful & constructive from the not so?
I would say yes; I would also say you'd be an idiot to admit you'd written it. Just because someone else broke the law as well doesn't mean you're off the hook.
Heh... I first thought script-kiddies, but when I reread it I thought you were talking about keeping porn away from your children.
Whoops.
This reminds me of Asimov's short story 'The Monkey's Finger.' It's about the mixed metaphor 'take arms against a sea of troubles,' & basically says that even though a 'host of troubles' is more correct English, 'sea' conveys the idea of vastness & unstoppable power so much better than 'host.'
Good story, get hold of copy. Then again, I've kind of spoilt half the story now. Still worth it.
Hmmmm... maybe the ability to believe in something supernatural? Not just actually having the belief anyway. Eh, good enough, I'll just accept I can't explain what I mean :(
So have you - thanks in return :)
Don't worry, it's interesting. Of course if you're getting bored stop by all means, but don't for my sake.
It does sound offensive, but the context took away the bite. It didn't seem intentionally offensive :) People who can't cope with unintentional offense are too common though, so fair enough disclaimer.
I'd also disagree with your wording there though... you seem to be actually referring to religion being the weakness. That's different to spirituality. It's hard to describe exactly what spirituality is, but all people seem to have it... is it the ability to entertain ideas which are purely abstract & irrational? I'm not sure how to explain it, but everyone's got it & religion is just one application. It's hard to even organise my thoughts on the subject, to be honest. Do you get what I mean?
You can argue that spirituality is a weakness separately, but it strikes me as a strength. Anything which allows you to think in different ways is a strength as long as you can analyse the way you're thinking, & know it for what it is.
Not that late? Too right it's not that late! Any time before two is early! Then again, I'm a freak in my sleeping patterns.
Too right!
I understand where you're coming from there. I have a problem with being tarred with the same brush as the fundies in the US, & used to with the Catholics (I've gotten over that one to some extent, though I still disagree with them).
Eh... it's only a weakness if you let it rule you. The same applies to rationalism - if you did everything totally rationally, you'd have no fun. For a great example, is it at all rational to go out & dig a hole in the middle of a paddock for no reason, just for the sake of it? No. But it sure as hell was fun. For a slightly more universal example, dangerous stuff is usually fun, but it's not rational. I'm sure you get what I'm saying anyway.I'm not sure I believe this... I know I don't have a typical usage pattern, but most of what I get over P2P is video.
The same applies to a friend I have who has heaps of software, & the only thing he's legitimately paid for in years is Windows. Mountains of warez, but still video makes up most of it.
It's designed to cause fear, so yes, it's terrorism.
That doesn't mean anything much though... it's a dirty tactic, but 'terrorism' is an overblown concept. Al Qaeda may be much worse than the **AA, but that's because they're vicious killers into the bargain, not because of the terrorism aspect.
In other words, I agree with you that the attitude to accusations of terrorism in Washington is ridiculous.
Yeah, well, I'm a pedant. There is a difference - it's just not what you'd normally be bothered considering, & most people use them interchangably. In practical terms I admit it might as well be the same.
No, I don't think so either. Which is where the weakness of the argument comes from - it's hard to put what I think of as religion into words. Sometimes it seems I should be thinking atheists have faith but no religion instead. Either way there's something both theists & atheists have which agnostics don't.
And I can understand & relate to what you say about there being no religion whatsoever, with no further thought - that would make you an atheist/agnostic cross by my definitions, I guess. You give it no thought, but believe not... perfect proof of the problems with definitions.
Anyway, I'm glad you get what I was saying. It obviously needs further work, but I'm pretty sure it's (fairly close to) what people are thinking when they say atheism is a religion. Unless they're just stupid & can't accept the idea of no religion like you suggest, but that can't apply to all of them.
As you should. I mentioned it only for the sake of completeness.
In general, I agree with you; all your point are valid. There's just a basic difference in opinion in that you either don't think it will be abused (I doubt you can be that naive) or that there are sufficient safeguards to deal with isolated incidents, where I feel that it inherently gives far too much potential for abuse as an institution. I admit I'm not heavily knowledgable about the US & Britain, but Australia's certainly not got any decent safeguards in its currently proposed legislation. The classical safeguard is the court, but these laws are removing courts from the equation, leading to the potential for basically autonomous action by the executive branch of government, with no judicial oversight.
It unfortunately puts me firmly in the crackpot brigade in they eyes of many, but I don't trust power. People are scum, & they will abuse it. Quite apart from that, people are prone to mistakes, & those will happen. Locking up an innocent is not OK, not even in this situation. They should have evidence first, & it should go through a court. It's inconvenient, terribly so, but it's the only way you can hope to even cut down on the potential for injustice.
I tip my hat to you - that they're terrorists means nothing next to that they're murderers. I know this is off track, but that's one of my pet peeves with the whole thing, the emphasis put on the terrorism over the murder.
Indeed I do. Not much, simply because I don't choose to watch a whole heap of it, but enough that I know it happens. I'm not redneck who only watches tabloid news. I watch the Australian ABC, usually.
I've got it in sight, I just happen to think we should be looking at the other ones too.
If they have evidence, why don't they charge you? The whole uproar is that you can be held without charge.
They could encrypt the data differently on each disc, & have the erasable part the key. Then they just need an ID number on each disk as well, & the NVRAM can store ID/key pairs. Then you'd not be able to distribute lists, there'd be too many possibilities.
Of course, they'd have a hard time pressing each disc differently, & it'd still be cracked & available in no time.