Sorry, Freud. Sometimes a limitation on the number of characters you can enter into a textbox is just a limitation on the number of characters you can enter into a textbox.
My understanding is that the jury's still more or less out on the precise cause of global warming. I for one am willing to let the jury come back on that one, whenever that might be.
The issue has become so politicized that it's ridiculous. So let's drop the global warming concern down a notch - can't we just be concerned about air quality?
I live in a mountain valley (Utah, Wasatch front) and there are days when you practically cannot breathe because of the crap in our air and the inversion. My wife has asthma issues, and this air doesn't help her one bit. The air here isn't as bad as, say, Santiago de Chile (we lived there for a few months) but it's still horrid in the winter.
I am no expert on these things, but I would assume that many of the problems the global warming crowd complain about result in much of the air pollution today. Only now the issue has become politicized thanks to Al(armist) Gore and others, which can hinder fixing something that is hurting those of us living in valleys now. The entrance of so many divisive political figures on the scene has lead many to take the opposing view, and continue proudly driving their gas guzzlers that are slowly poisoning the air here as a way to stick it to their opponents, and when poor evidence put forth by many regarding global warming (the only issue people seem to talk about any more) is refuted, people seem to think there is no problem continuing with business as usual, and that the environment will be fine if they continue using their gas guzzler. Maybe this won't cause global warming, but it will irritate my lungs to no end.
I cannot wait to get out of this valley and breathe some fresh air again.
You must be too good for this here place. Why don't you run down to some fancy website where you'd feel more welcome.
Damn kids. Come here and start reading links and articles. No respect for tradition. No honor. All he had to do was post a pithy comment and get his +5 insightful, but noooo... he had to read the article.
Why can't you just be like the rest of us, and argue past each other without doing any research while stubbornly holding your own ground, peppering your posts with links you know the other side won't read? Geez...
It's comforting to see that, in spite of all the strange upheavals on Slashdot, when everything seems to change, people are still regularly modded insightful for no reason at all. It's the one thing that doesn't change on April Fool's.
You know, I think you've got something there. The GP was certainly not my "best work", if you will, but disclaimers seem necessary on Slashdot.
Then again, disclaimers can serve a purpose - if a post is off-topic, for example, clearly mentioning that in the subject should be enough to ward off those looking for conversation that is on topic.
I clearly marked it as off topic - I didn't try to hide it at all - but was moded down (penalized, in a way) for being - surprise, surprise - off topic.
In addition to rewarding those who do quality posts, moderation should serve as a way to make certain kinds of posts easier to find.
Disclaimer (yeah, I know, I know...) - it's late, so this might not make sense...
Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think we're all missing the point here, folks! It's not the kids driving and picking up kids, but how they're driving.
Two-year olds driving, yeah, that's cool, but what if they start acting out what they see on TV and driving on the left side of the road? Trying to steer the car from the passenger side? What kind of example is the media setting for our kids?
Won't someone think of the CHILDREN!
Crazy foreigners, corrupting our American youth...
What has always struck me as interesting in this ongoing debate is the cognitive dissonance of some when it comes to the effect of media on forming opinion/public mores.
For example, if a film/television show depicts sympathetic characters who belong to a particular group (racial, religious, national, etc.) or practice/do a particular thing (let's use abortion, inter-racial marriage, etc.), the programming is "socially conscious" for exposing people to things they must be exposed to so they will learn to accept them as part of normal life.
But, when the same media depicts other acts - extreme violence, rape, etc. - as having no or little negative effect on the characters these same people generally say that what we see on television does not affect our values at all.
Which is it, then? Is media (particularly television) a powerful vehicle for molding the mores of a people or simply entertainment? Ask, and you'll frequently get different answers from the same people depending on what the subject is. Obviously, media does not exist in a bubble - it reflects what we do, but it's hard to deny that what is done in media is reflected in the actions of many members of society - all you have to do is go to YouTube and see that.
Of course, media can also be a provider of useless fluff that does neither...
'Do you really want to go on holiday carrying four novels and a guide book?'
Yes, I'd much rather have a guide book in my hand that screams "I'm not from here" than a digital version that could run out of batteries leaving me stranded and lost or, worse yet, the look of "I'm not from here" (generally obvious for tourists, anyways) and focusing all of my attention on an expensive looking toy, which is likely to draw in more problems.
I'll take a good old guide book any day, thanks. The novels, however, we can talk about.
I can't wait for the special edition... (OFFTOPIC)
on
Doomsday Clock To Advance
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Does this mean George Lucas is getting ready to release his Double Secret Special Editions?
I want to see the special edition where Han goes back in time and kills Greedo's parents.
The point of this is to make people uncomfortable.
If you're in public - and, in the case of most of these problems, not even on your own property - your expectation of privacy is zero. Zilch. Therefore, act as if people were watching you because, odds are, they are.
Maybe we could use some more shame in our society. Anything to silence the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world.
Yes, yes, we know the problems with this. But what about the benefits? While there may be some negative health benefits, the super hero population is only bound to grow with this recent discovery.
You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, and you can't make super mutants with laser vision without cracking some radioactive material storage facilities. Let's take a balanced look at this.
Think about it - in Grand Theft Auto, you routinely kill innocent people and police officers, beat women, commit various crimes, and do terrible things that all (well, most of us) would never do in real life for fun. Yet this game receives the greatest protection from the Slashdot community because, after all, what we do in a violent video game doesn't define what we do in real life, right?
Along comes this "Christian" game (as a Christian myself - well, Mormon, but I most certainly consider myself Chrisitian and couldn't care less what the Southern Baptists, et. al. believe - I would never consider purchasing this trash) and suddenly it's a terrible sign of what's wrong with the country, the people, etc.
I say let Wal-Mart sell the 3 copies of this game they'll sell and let the publisher of the game take a bath on it. It looks like total crap, it's offensive, but if we're going to protect other violent video games filled with scenarious we'd never condone in real life, then why not this one?
1) The F-117 has no air-to-air capability. It also has a rather small payload (basically 2 bombs), high maintenance costs due to early technology and is (generally believed, though I think it is still classified) to be a subsnoic jet, in other words, slower. Stealth isn't everything. Also, as it only fills the one role, it is less economical than an all-in-one type aircraft.
2) Uh... since when did anything other than a super-precision ground strike become unpopular politically? The U.S. has certainly used "dumb" bombs in many campaigns, including Afghanistan and Iraq, to good effect under certain conditions and on certain targets. JDAMs - much more economical than laser guided munitions - are also quote popular and while they aren't as accurate, "close" is often good enough, assuming they're fired under certain conditions, of course. Furthermore, this particular aircraft is capable of using laser-guided weapons.
3) You know, there are areas without civilian populations present where Close Air Support could still be a concern... like, say, the mountains of Afghanistan perhaps? Or in the middle of nowhere in the Iraqi desert? Or hundreds of other battlefields? Not every battle in the future will occur in third world cities, you know.
4) A helicopter with a "chain gun" has a limited operational range and exposes itself to a great deal of enemy fire. Helicopters' armament tends to be lighter than what an aircraft can provide, focusing more on armor-piercing weapons (Hellfire missiles), and smaller weapons more useful against vehicles and lighter targets (rockets, canon, etc.). A strike fighter, on the other hand, can deliver 2000 lb. bombs on a target when necessary, enablig it to knock out, say, a heavily reinforced building or bunker than a helicopter would stand no chance against.
I mean, if you don't like this plane, that's cool and all, but there is still a mission out there for it.
Step 1 - Register thousands of fake/otherwise uninterested people to vote
Step 2 - Get people to use these fake voter ID cards (all you need's the card - no picture ID) to "vote early and vote often" - absentee ballots, taking people to multiple polling stations, etc.
And there is no mention as to whether they were intoxicated.
If you're going to complain, at least get your facts straight. I know we don't read articles here at slashdot, but I've found it to be helpful. Particularly when you complain about others trying to "deceive" people.
Giving the right to vote to thousands of people, without even making them sign pesky cards or fill out paperwork.
How nice of them.
Obviously, the above is not the DNC directly, but an activist group which really, really supports the DNC. And it's an allegation, but one which seems to have a lot of steam behind it.
Even more obviously, the DNC is hardly alone in doing this - the good old GOP has done it as well.
What strikes me is that people are treating a stupid automated call drive as the big issue - it's not. Smear campaigns do fall under the first ammendment, regardless of how stupid they are (and I think they're a huge waste). Smearing an opponent does not disenfranchise voters the same way as preventing them from going to a polling place does.
There are serioius issues that need to be looked at when it comes to voting security - electronic or otherwise. Far too many zombies emerging to vote and far too many voter registration cards for people that don't exist.
Auto-dialers don't piss me off nearly as much as thousands of "questionable" voter registration cards. Now THAT is disenfranchisement by reducing the power of each individual's vote
I suppose I should expect this from the ever-ready-to do its research Slashdot, but where are the sources for this article?
If you look at this "news site's" front page, you'll see a lot of the traditional conspiracy rantings and, when you look particularly at the traditional Kennedyconspiracy nonsense so typical of sites that have completely fallen off their rocker.
This isn't a news site. There's no good sourcing (yes, I followed the URL at the end, see below). The reference stated to this document mentions no such restrictions as those found in the Slashdot summary or the article.
There are certainly privacy issues at stake, but nothing near what this ridiculous article or the Slashdot summary make it out to be.
This is just piss poor. I know Slashdot isn't a news site, so I don't expect it to research things as thoroughly as a journalist would (granted, I expect little of journalists as well).
The most pertinent part of the executive summary of the regulation proposal in question reads as follows:
The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States. On April 7, 2005, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published requirements for the transmission of passenger and crew manifests for aircraft and vessels arriving from foreign destinations or departing to foreign destinations (70 FR 17820). Implementation of the "2005 APIS Rule" (named for the Advance Passenger Information System, the CBP electronic system used to obtain electronic manifest information from carriers) required that information on passengers and crew to be transmitted: no later than 15 minutes after departure for arriving aircraft passengers; no later than 15 minutes prior to departure for departing aircraft passengers; at least 60 minutes prior to departure for arriving and departing aircraft crew; at least 24 hours and as much as 96 hours prior to a vessel's entry at a US port for arriving passengers and crew, depending on the length of the voyage; and 15 minutes prior to departure for departing vessel passengers and crew.
Are there privacy issues here? You betcha. And they've been discussed here at length. Do they approach what the article and its summary here state they approach? Not at all. Read the rest of the proposed regulation.
Come on, slashdot. Treat us like adults. Give us primary source materials and avoid the conspiracy mumbo-jumbo.
I will say this, though - If I'm wrong, and you find some nuance in the document I missed, please post and inform me.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, Freud. Sometimes a limitation on the number of characters you can enter into a textbox is just a limitation on the number of characters you can enter into a textbox.
My understanding is that the jury's still more or less out on the precise cause of global warming. I for one am willing to let the jury come back on that one, whenever that might be.
The issue has become so politicized that it's ridiculous. So let's drop the global warming concern down a notch - can't we just be concerned about air quality?
I live in a mountain valley (Utah, Wasatch front) and there are days when you practically cannot breathe because of the crap in our air and the inversion. My wife has asthma issues, and this air doesn't help her one bit. The air here isn't as bad as, say, Santiago de Chile (we lived there for a few months) but it's still horrid in the winter.
I am no expert on these things, but I would assume that many of the problems the global warming crowd complain about result in much of the air pollution today. Only now the issue has become politicized thanks to Al(armist) Gore and others, which can hinder fixing something that is hurting those of us living in valleys now. The entrance of so many divisive political figures on the scene has lead many to take the opposing view, and continue proudly driving their gas guzzlers that are slowly poisoning the air here as a way to stick it to their opponents, and when poor evidence put forth by many regarding global warming (the only issue people seem to talk about any more) is refuted, people seem to think there is no problem continuing with business as usual, and that the environment will be fine if they continue using their gas guzzler. Maybe this won't cause global warming, but it will irritate my lungs to no end.
I cannot wait to get out of this valley and breathe some fresh air again.
This is Slashdot.
People don't read links or articles here.
You must be too good for this here place. Why don't you run down to some fancy website where you'd feel more welcome.
Damn kids. Come here and start reading links and articles. No respect for tradition. No honor. All he had to do was post a pithy comment and get his +5 insightful, but noooo... he had to read the article.
Why can't you just be like the rest of us, and argue past each other without doing any research while stubbornly holding your own ground, peppering your posts with links you know the other side won't read? Geez...
It's comforting to see that, in spite of all the strange upheavals on Slashdot, when everything seems to change, people are still regularly modded insightful for no reason at all. It's the one thing that doesn't change on April Fool's.
This was actually intended as a joke. I suppose I should have added a smiley face or something.
That Mr. Howard has yet to come to the sad realization that the rest of the Vista-using world has...
You're right about not using Karma bonus on off-topic posts. I'll do that in the future.
You know, I think you've got something there. The GP was certainly not my "best work", if you will, but disclaimers seem necessary on Slashdot.
5 97552
Then again, disclaimers can serve a purpose - if a post is off-topic, for example, clearly mentioning that in the subject should be enough to ward off those looking for conversation that is on topic.
But, from time to time, even a disclaimer is no good. For example, this post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216756&cid=17
I clearly marked it as off topic - I didn't try to hide it at all - but was moded down (penalized, in a way) for being - surprise, surprise - off topic.
In addition to rewarding those who do quality posts, moderation should serve as a way to make certain kinds of posts easier to find.
Disclaimer (yeah, I know, I know...) - it's late, so this might not make sense...
Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think we're all missing the point here, folks! It's not the kids driving and picking up kids, but how they're driving.
/.
Two-year olds driving, yeah, that's cool, but what if they start acting out what they see on TV and driving on the left side of the road? Trying to steer the car from the passenger side? What kind of example is the media setting for our kids?
Won't someone think of the CHILDREN!
Crazy foreigners, corrupting our American youth...
Yes, I realize non-U.S. citizens read
What has always struck me as interesting in this ongoing debate is the cognitive dissonance of some when it comes to the effect of media on forming opinion/public mores.
For example, if a film/television show depicts sympathetic characters who belong to a particular group (racial, religious, national, etc.) or practice/do a particular thing (let's use abortion, inter-racial marriage, etc.), the programming is "socially conscious" for exposing people to things they must be exposed to so they will learn to accept them as part of normal life.
But, when the same media depicts other acts - extreme violence, rape, etc. - as having no or little negative effect on the characters these same people generally say that what we see on television does not affect our values at all.
Which is it, then? Is media (particularly television) a powerful vehicle for molding the mores of a people or simply entertainment? Ask, and you'll frequently get different answers from the same people depending on what the subject is. Obviously, media does not exist in a bubble - it reflects what we do, but it's hard to deny that what is done in media is reflected in the actions of many members of society - all you have to do is go to YouTube and see that.
Of course, media can also be a provider of useless fluff that does neither...
'Do you really want to go on holiday carrying four novels and a guide book?'
Yes, I'd much rather have a guide book in my hand that screams "I'm not from here" than a digital version that could run out of batteries leaving me stranded and lost or, worse yet, the look of "I'm not from here" (generally obvious for tourists, anyways) and focusing all of my attention on an expensive looking toy, which is likely to draw in more problems.
I'll take a good old guide book any day, thanks. The novels, however, we can talk about.
Does this mean George Lucas is getting ready to release his Double Secret Special Editions?
I want to see the special edition where Han goes back in time and kills Greedo's parents.
Han shoots first - waaaaaay first.
The point of this is to make people uncomfortable.
If you're in public - and, in the case of most of these problems, not even on your own property - your expectation of privacy is zero. Zilch. Therefore, act as if people were watching you because, odds are, they are.
Maybe we could use some more shame in our society. Anything to silence the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world.
...that it's fairly simple to avoid becoming a target of these websites:
Pick up after your dog.
Park correctly.
Don't take things that don't belong to you.
I know that if people in my apartment complex did this, we could all live happier lives, particularly the picking up after dogs bit.
Don't want to have a video of you stealing your neighbor's paper show up on YouTube? Don't steal your neighbor's paper.
Hyper-sensitive man! Able to look through an obvious joke with his penetrating sarcasm ignoring vision! No internet joke is safe!
I kid, I kid...
Yes, yes, we know the problems with this. But what about the benefits? While there may be some negative health benefits, the super hero population is only bound to grow with this recent discovery.
You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, and you can't make super mutants with laser vision without cracking some radioactive material storage facilities. Let's take a balanced look at this.
Think about it - in Grand Theft Auto, you routinely kill innocent people and police officers, beat women, commit various crimes, and do terrible things that all (well, most of us) would never do in real life for fun. Yet this game receives the greatest protection from the Slashdot community because, after all, what we do in a violent video game doesn't define what we do in real life, right?
Along comes this "Christian" game (as a Christian myself - well, Mormon, but I most certainly consider myself Chrisitian and couldn't care less what the Southern Baptists, et. al. believe - I would never consider purchasing this trash) and suddenly it's a terrible sign of what's wrong with the country, the people, etc.
I say let Wal-Mart sell the 3 copies of this game they'll sell and let the publisher of the game take a bath on it. It looks like total crap, it's offensive, but if we're going to protect other violent video games filled with scenarious we'd never condone in real life, then why not this one?
A few pointers:
1) The F-117 has no air-to-air capability. It also has a rather small payload (basically 2 bombs), high maintenance costs due to early technology and is (generally believed, though I think it is still classified) to be a subsnoic jet, in other words, slower. Stealth isn't everything. Also, as it only fills the one role, it is less economical than an all-in-one type aircraft.
2) Uh... since when did anything other than a super-precision ground strike become unpopular politically? The U.S. has certainly used "dumb" bombs in many campaigns, including Afghanistan and Iraq, to good effect under certain conditions and on certain targets. JDAMs - much more economical than laser guided munitions - are also quote popular and while they aren't as accurate, "close" is often good enough, assuming they're fired under certain conditions, of course. Furthermore, this particular aircraft is capable of using laser-guided weapons.
3) You know, there are areas without civilian populations present where Close Air Support could still be a concern... like, say, the mountains of Afghanistan perhaps? Or in the middle of nowhere in the Iraqi desert? Or hundreds of other battlefields? Not every battle in the future will occur in third world cities, you know.
4) A helicopter with a "chain gun" has a limited operational range and exposes itself to a great deal of enemy fire. Helicopters' armament tends to be lighter than what an aircraft can provide, focusing more on armor-piercing weapons (Hellfire missiles), and smaller weapons more useful against vehicles and lighter targets (rockets, canon, etc.). A strike fighter, on the other hand, can deliver 2000 lb. bombs on a target when necessary, enablig it to knock out, say, a heavily reinforced building or bunker than a helicopter would stand no chance against.
I mean, if you don't like this plane, that's cool and all, but there is still a mission out there for it.
Or is anyone else having difficulty finding Tasers in the PATRIOT Act?
Because it would contain Nancy Pelosi.
*shudder*...
Wow. After a long search, there really is something better(?) than Austin Powers' "Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day..."
Forgive me as I go remove the part of my brain responsible for conjuring images like this. And gouge out my eyes, just in case...
1. They wouldn't need them - they can always vote absentee.
2. No, they don't - read their website
3. A basic knowledge of voter fraud may help your willful ignorance.
Step 1 - Register thousands of fake/otherwise uninterested people to vote
Step 2 - Get people to use these fake voter ID cards (all you need's the card - no picture ID) to "vote early and vote often" - absentee ballots, taking people to multiple polling stations, etc.
Step 3 - Power!
It was 4 of them.
One the son of a DNC congresswoman.
The other three DNC campaign workers.
And there is no mention as to whether they were intoxicated.
If you're going to complain, at least get your facts straight. I know we don't read articles here at slashdot, but I've found it to be helpful. Particularly when you complain about others trying to "deceive" people.
I mean, look at this!
/ stlouiscitycounty/story/B400FAC3338F7D0C8625721500 2217D1?OpenDocument
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf
Giving the right to vote to thousands of people, without even making them sign pesky cards or fill out paperwork.
How nice of them.
Obviously, the above is not the DNC directly, but an activist group which really, really supports the DNC. And it's an allegation, but one which seems to have a lot of steam behind it.
Even more obviously, the DNC is hardly alone in doing this - the good old GOP has done it as well.
What strikes me is that people are treating a stupid automated call drive as the big issue - it's not. Smear campaigns do fall under the first ammendment, regardless of how stupid they are (and I think they're a huge waste). Smearing an opponent does not disenfranchise voters the same way as preventing them from going to a polling place does.
There are serioius issues that need to be looked at when it comes to voting security - electronic or otherwise. Far too many zombies emerging to vote and far too many voter registration cards for people that don't exist.
Auto-dialers don't piss me off nearly as much as thousands of "questionable" voter registration cards. Now THAT is disenfranchisement by reducing the power of each individual's vote
I suppose I should expect this from the ever-ready-to do its research Slashdot, but where are the sources for this article?
If you look at this "news site's" front page, you'll see a lot of the traditional conspiracy rantings and, when you look particularly at the traditional Kennedy conspiracy nonsense so typical of sites that have completely fallen off their rocker.
This isn't a news site. There's no good sourcing (yes, I followed the URL at the end, see below). The reference stated to this document mentions no such restrictions as those found in the Slashdot summary or the article.
There are certainly privacy issues at stake, but nothing near what this ridiculous article or the Slashdot summary make it out to be.
This is just piss poor. I know Slashdot isn't a news site, so I don't expect it to research things as thoroughly as a journalist would (granted, I expect little of journalists as well).
The most pertinent part of the executive summary of the regulation proposal in question reads as follows:
The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been
identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or
departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified
from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States. On April 7, 2005, the Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published requirements for the transmission of
passenger and crew manifests for aircraft and vessels arriving from foreign
destinations or departing to foreign destinations (70 FR 17820). Implementation of the
"2005 APIS Rule" (named for the Advance Passenger Information System, the CBP
electronic system used to obtain electronic manifest information from carriers)
required that information on passengers and crew to be transmitted: no later than 15
minutes after departure for arriving aircraft passengers; no later than 15 minutes prior
to departure for departing aircraft passengers; at least 60 minutes prior to departure
for arriving and departing aircraft crew; at least 24 hours and as much as 96 hours
prior to a vessel's entry at a US port for arriving passengers and crew, depending on
the length of the voyage; and 15 minutes prior to departure for departing vessel
passengers and crew.
Are there privacy issues here? You betcha. And they've been discussed here at length. Do they approach what the article and its summary here state they approach? Not at all. Read the rest of the proposed regulation.
Come on, slashdot. Treat us like adults. Give us primary source materials and avoid the conspiracy mumbo-jumbo.
I will say this, though - If I'm wrong, and you find some nuance in the document I missed, please post and inform me.