"Anyone who would argue that drugs should be legal must certainly recognize that making them illegal has had little effect on their availability. So why would making guns illegal be any different?"
It's a very sensible question and one that deserves to think of it.
There's an obvious difference, tough: drugs produce ill people that *need* more of it, guns are not the same.
Another one is the very different industries needed to fill the streets with drugs and guns: it's much easier for the former than the later -while this could change if 3d printing stands after its promises.
"If anything, we could expect it to fuel a black market"
Quite true and a difficult issue to deal with in a (modern state) representative democracy with politicians only interested in next campaign.
Difficult, but not impossible: Europe is (comparatively speaking) free of handguns but that was not the case after WWII, which means it is doable.
"I just get sick of this paternalistic notion that government is somehow obliged and/or has the ability to keep us all safe from each other."
You also have a point on this. But your flaw, I'd say is considering government is something different to citezenship. It should be not that government is there to protect each other but that each other empower ourselves through government to have the kind of society we want to live in. And I certainly, while not at any cost, want to live in a society where I don't need to be worried to be killed by a handgun.
"You are just ignoring that drugs are, easy, the biggest motivator for crime"
No he isn't. He is fully aware of what you aren't: *Illegal* drugs are the biggest motivator for crime.
"guns, on the right hands, also saves lives."
Right. Only those whose command is to serve and protect and basically nobody else. Even more, due to the sycopathic status of your country, even police is too many times not the right hands.
"It's strange that every single defender of the firearms ban justs ignores the Swiss status quo."
First get the civility status of Switzerland and ask for your guns then.
"The vast majority of paranoid nutters on Slashdot are of precisely zero interest to the NSA."
Obviously, chances are low, but then, stakes are high: imagine the reach of something like mccarthyism nowadays; are you sure there can't be nothing similar in your country within thirty or fourty years?
Or, even if its reach doesn't go as far as nazism, do you want to bet on slowly eroding your rigths and then find a day when you -or your son, can't get a job, or healthcare, or a mortage because you happen to be considered within the wrong group? Even if it doesn't happen, are you comfortable living in a country where that could happen because you allowed your government and big corporations the ability to do it?
"The first thought that came to me was how do you have law and order without a nation?"
Law an order comes from a group of people that agree on a way to act.
In the past, this group of people needed to be in close contact and usually shared other common traits and thus became nations.
Please, think that the need for physical proximity and cultural/racial similitudes might be no longer needed and thus the concept of a nation for a legal corpus to arise.
"Yeah, then we have warlords on the Moon. Nope."
Please pay attention that in order to avoid warlords to get their will you need to become a warlord yourself.
Add 0 to the well-ordered set and change the algorithm so you start taking out elements from the sorted set. This way you naturally include the empty set and you tag the algorithm (retiring the zero means "hey, I start counting)
"That's really the only thing stopping me from putting HTTPS stuff on my server, it's annoying as hell to have to keep clicking through that warning every time I start a new browser session."
I find annoying your ignorance.
"HTTPS seems to have been designed around the assumption that "who the server claims to be" is vastly more important than "the server is encrypting this data", which is not necessarily true nowadays."
So would you really prefer sending your bank details cyphered to a criminal than in the clear to your bank? Weird.
"Each page request is logically* a seperate "conversation" between client and server"
Yeah, so HTTP is stateless... worthy news!
"Forms may or may not be submitted to the same hostname they are received from"
So what? Forms get defined by the one that sends them, not the one where the data finally ends up. If I'm to trust what acme.com sends, then I have to trust what acme.com sends, right?
"By the time the UI elements are displayed it's TOO LATE."
I don't think you know how HTTP works, really.
But then, you have a (minimal) point, not the one you think you have but, hey: since the conversation starts in the clear, a poisoned DNS or a MiM can send your first request to (or through) an unintended third party which, therefore, will gain knowledge about your intention to set a conversation with the intended part (hey! what happens here? why is this Oliver North talking to that Iranian guy?). Nothing unexpected but still it makes HTTPS not suitable for high confidentiality (that's what, say, tor, is meant to).
"Theoretically, with less of a market for oil Iran should not need Nuclear power and could be meeting their energy demands with modern oil and gas generation facilities, Far less costly and easier to build."
Theoretically, any gallon of oil that gets burned in Iran can't be exported for a profit and any gallon of oil that doesn't get into the world out of its reserves is a gallon that doesn't add money to its gross domestic product.
"Those "some things" where it matters are generally the core competency of the business - what sets them apart from competitors."
I tell you a secret: in this day and age, what sets a company apart from competitors is the way they capture information, how they analice it and what they do with it. It is not manufacturing, it is not marketing, it is not distribution and it is not selling.
"Tesla should design their own cars, especially electrical subsystems of the cars, but buy trashcans, spreadsheets, and SAP."
Correct.
MBA-grade correct.
And that pesky Bezos should focus on his company's core competencies, selling books, and let the generic part, like IT, to the good known providers on the field, as all other e-companies in these dot-com boom days are doing.
After all, even if he ends up with a excellent IT group, what would he do with the spare capacity? Losing tons of money, I say.
"Better to focus on math, which is the hard part of programming."
There you have an argument. I'm not saying a good one, but an argument: let's use programming as a way to reach to math.
On the other hand, coding is a way of expression. Arguably, coding makes you more expressive, in ways neither natural language nor maths can allow being kindof a middle ground between them.
Slashdot Mirror
The one I'm interested in is count... basie
"Anyone who would argue that drugs should be legal must certainly recognize that making them illegal has had little effect on their availability. So why would making guns illegal be any different?"
It's a very sensible question and one that deserves to think of it.
There's an obvious difference, tough: drugs produce ill people that *need* more of it, guns are not the same.
Another one is the very different industries needed to fill the streets with drugs and guns: it's much easier for the former than the later -while this could change if 3d printing stands after its promises.
"If anything, we could expect it to fuel a black market"
Quite true and a difficult issue to deal with in a (modern state) representative democracy with politicians only interested in next campaign.
Difficult, but not impossible: Europe is (comparatively speaking) free of handguns but that was not the case after WWII, which means it is doable.
"I just get sick of this paternalistic notion that government is somehow obliged and/or has the ability to keep us all safe from each other."
You also have a point on this. But your flaw, I'd say is considering government is something different to citezenship. It should be not that government is there to protect each other but that each other empower ourselves through government to have the kind of society we want to live in. And I certainly, while not at any cost, want to live in a society where I don't need to be worried to be killed by a handgun.
"You are just ignoring that drugs are, easy, the biggest motivator for crime"
No he isn't. He is fully aware of what you aren't: *Illegal* drugs are the biggest motivator for crime.
"guns, on the right hands, also saves lives."
Right. Only those whose command is to serve and protect and basically nobody else. Even more, due to the sycopathic status of your country, even police is too many times not the right hands.
"It's strange that every single defender of the firearms ban justs ignores the Swiss status quo."
First get the civility status of Switzerland and ask for your guns then.
"Have we no obligation to take sides?"
A big resounding "YES".
An that's why Voltaire also took his side: "I disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
"You mean, your palms."
And that's the really weird thing!
What are Fujitsu executives thinking about!? Palms have been out of the market for a decade! Why they don't support Android instead?
"The vast majority of paranoid nutters on Slashdot are of precisely zero interest to the NSA."
Obviously, chances are low, but then, stakes are high: imagine the reach of something like mccarthyism nowadays; are you sure there can't be nothing similar in your country within thirty or fourty years?
Or, even if its reach doesn't go as far as nazism, do you want to bet on slowly eroding your rigths and then find a day when you -or your son, can't get a job, or healthcare, or a mortage because you happen to be considered within the wrong group? Even if it doesn't happen, are you comfortable living in a country where that could happen because you allowed your government and big corporations the ability to do it?
"I don't have anything the NSA is interested in."
Today.
That you know of.
"They were better at getting over those stupid city walls and bombing with precision than artillery shells."
No, they were not at first. It took years and tests to reach that point -which was my point.
"Cost and safety are not the main problem. The main problem is the lack of return on investment."
So too high cost and risk. Good to see that you agree.
"Right now the only use for the moon is a) saying you did it and b) collecting moon rocks."
Basically the same can be said of Everest's tip or Las Vegas, you see...
"No, airplane travel serves an existing need better than existing alternatives."
Yes, it does it... now.
Do you think Wright brothers', Lilienthal's, Santos-Dumont's... planes served any real need any better than anything already existing?
"The first thought that came to me was how do you have law and order without a nation?"
Law an order comes from a group of people that agree on a way to act.
In the past, this group of people needed to be in close contact and usually shared other common traits and thus became nations.
Please, think that the need for physical proximity and cultural/racial similitudes might be no longer needed and thus the concept of a nation for a legal corpus to arise.
"Yeah, then we have warlords on the Moon. Nope."
Please pay attention that in order to avoid warlords to get their will you need to become a warlord yourself.
Add 0 to the well-ordered set and change the algorithm so you start taking out elements from the sorted set. This way you naturally include the empty set and you tag the algorithm (retiring the zero means "hey, I start counting)
In other words: ordinality versus cardinality.
It seems these guys go after 6-year-olds because if they were older they'd laugh at their ignorance.
"That's really the only thing stopping me from putting HTTPS stuff on my server, it's annoying as hell to have to keep clicking through that warning every time I start a new browser session."
I find annoying your ignorance.
"HTTPS seems to have been designed around the assumption that "who the server claims to be" is vastly more important than "the server is encrypting this data", which is not necessarily true nowadays."
So would you really prefer sending your bank details cyphered to a criminal than in the clear to your bank? Weird.
"Each page request is logically* a seperate "conversation" between client and server"
Yeah, so HTTP is stateless... worthy news!
"Forms may or may not be submitted to the same hostname they are received from"
So what? Forms get defined by the one that sends them, not the one where the data finally ends up. If I'm to trust what acme.com sends, then I have to trust what acme.com sends, right?
"By the time the UI elements are displayed it's TOO LATE."
I don't think you know how HTTP works, really.
But then, you have a (minimal) point, not the one you think you have but, hey: since the conversation starts in the clear, a poisoned DNS or a MiM can send your first request to (or through) an unintended third party which, therefore, will gain knowledge about your intention to set a conversation with the intended part (hey! what happens here? why is this Oliver North talking to that Iranian guy?). Nothing unexpected but still it makes HTTPS not suitable for high confidentiality (that's what, say, tor, is meant to).
"Theoretically, with less of a market for oil Iran should not need Nuclear power and could be meeting their energy demands with modern oil and gas generation facilities, Far less costly and easier to build."
Theoretically, any gallon of oil that gets burned in Iran can't be exported for a profit and any gallon of oil that doesn't get into the world out of its reserves is a gallon that doesn't add money to its gross domestic product.
" whom would he work for now? Is google planning to buy microsoft? apple? the NSA?"
Yaaawwwn! I barf in your general direction for you lack of business acumen.
SCO, dammit! it has been SCO from the beginning!
"I guess you're unfamiliar with Bezos and unfamiliar with how and why Amazon began."
I guess you didn't hear the homungus wooosh above your head because it was hypersonic and the sound still didn't reach you.
"Those "some things" where it matters are generally the core competency of the business - what sets them apart from competitors."
I tell you a secret: in this day and age, what sets a company apart from competitors is the way they capture information, how they analice it and what they do with it. It is not manufacturing, it is not marketing, it is not distribution and it is not selling.
On a side note, Nicholas Carr was utterly wrong.
"Tesla should design their own cars, especially electrical subsystems of the cars, but buy trashcans, spreadsheets, and SAP."
Correct.
MBA-grade correct.
And that pesky Bezos should focus on his company's core competencies, selling books, and let the generic part, like IT, to the good known providers on the field, as all other e-companies in these dot-com boom days are doing.
After all, even if he ends up with a excellent IT group, what would he do with the spare capacity? Losing tons of money, I say.
"Better to focus on math, which is the hard part of programming."
There you have an argument. I'm not saying a good one, but an argument: let's use programming as a way to reach to math.
On the other hand, coding is a way of expression. Arguably, coding makes you more expressive, in ways neither natural language nor maths can allow being kindof a middle ground between them.
"Natural monopoly is a myth. A city could bury conduit under its streets and charge a reasonable rate for pulling copper or fiber."
And then "the city" would own the monopoly. Absolute antiamerican socialism.
Isn't that UK?
"Funny how that works, huh?"
Yes, really funny.
Are you implying that companies want to operate at a loss simply because "the dollars there allow these things"?
"Maybe read up on what capitalism is instead of listening to the leftist propaganda?"
Humm... I got my basic ideas about capitalism reading Adam Smith. Is he the kind of "leftist propaganda" I should avoid?