Re:If at first you don't succeed.... fail again
on
Iridium Saved?
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· Score: 1
The Goverment... who already own loads of their own sats.
AKAIK the US Government was one of the biggest customers of Iridium. It makes sense for them to try to go after specific segments of the market. It was a dumb move in the first place to offer it as they did - as a service for anyone. The majority of people will never need 100% coverage. Any good business will go after a specific niche and dominate it. What they're doing now is what they should have done in the first place.
Anyway, the next time you are stressed at work take three deep breaths, hold in the last one and imagine you are behind the counter at McDonalds or perhaps your job is cleaning the porta-pottys at construction site. Next haul out your last paystub (or whatever) and exhale while reading it. If you still don't feel better, start shopping around for an organization that will treat you better...
That's all fine and dandy but a job that sucks is a job that sucks regardless of how much you're being paid. If you're new to the IT industry you'll learn this soon enough. High pay is great when you first start but you'll eventually find out that bullshit hours and no life isn't worth what you're getting in return.
I can't believe this is listed as one of the main stories on the front page of slashdot. Javalobby.org also had it as a main story (I assume because of the MS bashing). After wasting my time reading his journal I decided to waste more reading some of his 'diatribes'. The 'tree hugger' one being particularly interesting. I loved the assumption the tree should be cut down because 'it attracts lightning'. Its been there for 600 years and this guy is worried about lightning. Then we get the thing about how it should be chopped down and made into furniture for 'the less fortunate'. I don't know what planet this guy is living on but here on Earth wood from a tree that old would certainly never end up in the home of someone whos poor. Worth too much money...doesnt this guy watch This Old House?:)
Low Prices (due to above): $800-$900 per month rent on a nice apartment (even one in the city!), $10 for an ok restaurant tab, cheap groceries. $1.36 for a gallon of gas (and this is unusually high right now).
Christ...I'd almost kill for $1.36 a gallon;) I live in illinois and the lowest I've found in the Chicago area for regular is $1.89. Chicago itself has the highest gas price in the lower 48.
I can't see why anyone would need more than a few Xterms running vi, gdb, and the standard unix tools (grep, awk, sed, etc.)
Yeah...and why would anyone need more than a 2400 baud modem? Hell...I don't even understand why we have graphic displays...a green screen should be enough. What are you smoking man? Why on Earth would you possibly want to use gdb in line mode? Puh-lease.
I've not yet seen an IDE as scriptable as bash.
You haven't looked far enough then.
I've never seen an editor that lets you accomplish programming-related tasks than vi, although emacs is close and I admire many of its features.
Ditto to what I said above
I must admit, however, I am currently being swayed down the dark path of some of the nicer GUI debuggers out there...
You should have been swayed years ago. When I was in school most people used printfs for debugging (as I suspect they might still). Even after I showed them xxgdb and the like (later on DDD) they still didnt see the point. Meanwhile I turned in my programs faster.
The fact is that for the majority of database backed sites, cost is far more important than functionality when it comes to databases. MySQL is cheap in almost every sense of the word. It costs nothing to use, administration is incredibly simple, and there's nothing particularly confusing about it.
While I wont argue about the ease of use of MySQL (have never used it) I will say that cost should not an issue at all for a well-funded company that needs a database backend. I'm not sure what types of sites youre referring to but any sort of commerce site would be nuts to use MySQL.
A lot of people, even given the funds to purchase a DB like Oracle, don't know how it works. Thus MySQL works well enough for them. They don't care about the lack of stored procedures because they've never used them before. They don't care about the high-load write performance problems because they won't have load.
This is complete bull. Give the funds to purchase something as expensive as Oracle you'd want to make sure you have the know-how to use it. If you didnt have the know-how it would be pointless to buy. And not caring about stored procedures just because you havent used them before is just plain stupid. That is like saying people don't care about buying a car that gets better gas mileage becuase they never used on before. IMHO any developer worth anything at all will be continually learning new ways to do things effeciently.
I'm sorry but that review was pretty much biased. The Pocket PC is a POCKET PC (I don't know how to say it more clearly : it is PC that fits in a pocket !). That's why there is a hierarchical file system and all this extra stuff that made the reviewer complain. It is why I like my E105 more than the Palms I tested : it can do a lot more stuff, and work pretty much like my home PC.
That being said why exactly would you want a PC in that small of a package? Sure...give us similar apps and 1/4 the functionality and make it harder to use (because of the size,etc). The reason the Palm has been successful as it has is because it does what most people want a PDA for right out of the box...contacts, todo list, appointments.
The reviewer assumed all you expect from a PDA is take a few notes and check your appointments - because that's what his Palm experience made him expect. Well, I'm sorry, but there's no reason why PDA should be restricted to this. MP3 for example is a great killer app for a PDA.
I can understand why the reviewer assumed that....because thats what most people buy them for and why the Palm has the marketshare it has. It fits those functions perfectly. I also don't quite get how MP3 is a 'great killer app' for a PDA. Its a cool, whiz-bang thing yes...it is not practical at all with the memory constraints these devices have out of the box. If you want to play MP3s in a portable fashion buy a device that is designed to do that. As to Palm devices and MP3 I'd assume that Handspring will have an MP3 Springboard module at some point.
What MS seems to be forgetting is that it makes no sense to duplicate desktop PC functionality in a handheld format. The one cool thing I think they included was the ebook reader. The rest seems awfully wasteful. The other thing that concerned me was the distinct lack of cohesion the WinCE UI seemed to have (according to the review...I haven't seen one of these personally). One thing that also makes the Palm products great is the UI.
Never found a good book on UML? There are plenty. The best examples I know of: Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML by Meilir Page-Jones if you want a refresher on OO along with a good UML intro (enough UML there for most projects). UML Distilled by Martin Fowler. The Unified Modeling Language User Guide by Booch, Jacobson and Rumbaugh.
I can hardly believe I'm reading this here. The problem arises not from Jocks or Geeks but from the very destructive idea of classes. Stop thinking of people in terms of Jocks or Geeks or Classes, stop looking for divisions between people, treat them and respect them as individuals, and the world will be a much better place.
Great posting. Really. The funny thing is (at least in my experience) was that when I went to my 10 year HS reunion the majority of everyone were talking to one another. Nobody really gave a crap anymore. I just hope most teenagers now remember to think ahead and that HS is only 4 years of your life. Not a real short time but nonetheless not the end of the world. Hold on.
Yes but apparently you arent well-adjusted and intelligent enough to not make a statement such as:
I am well-adjusted, moral, and probably finished ahead of 90% of you 'WAVE-approved' sheep.
If you want someone to listen to you I'd suggest that pointing out that you're smarter than they are (which you don't really know) or calling them 'sheep' is not a good way to go about getting their attention.
Trying to set yourself apart by saying you are 'the cream of society' isn't too brilliant either. So youre smart and your family is smart and you make a lot of money? Big whoop. Doesn't make you any better than anyone else.
The point of your post is well taken but losing a bit of the attitude might help just a little.
Wanna bet? It's called the credit reporting bureau's databases. Sure, you can request (or purchase) PART OF your credit report, but they have a great deal more information on you than you might expect. And you have NO RIGHT at ALL to change the information in there.
Care to share what other info is there and how you know about it?
In fact, according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (not a very accurate name), the Credit reporting companies don't really have to remove inaccurate information. Sure, you can send them a protest letter, but the incorrect information still stays on your report and you're still denied credit based on it.
Credit-reporting agencies are required to investigate any claims made about bogus information and reply within a certain amount of time. What you said about incorrect information staying on your report and still being denied credit based on it goes completely against my personal experience. I had several fuck-ups on my credit report where a charge card I had closed out years before was magically reopened and charged with something my mother bought. Of course I kept all the records that showed that the account had been closed for over 2 years and was paid in full. How did I find out about it? I was denied a checking account at a bank. Got my free yearly reports from all three agencies and found I had marks against me for this card for it being 120 days+ overdue. Sent them an investigation sheet along with my paperwork and guess what? The information was taken off and wasnt on the reports the next time I checked. And guess what? I was able to buy a car and get full financing as well as more credit cards.
As to your claims about the MIB please give references and I'll be happy to research it and see for myself.
So is my perspective skewed or something here? Is your experience primarily with small companies? The one company that didn't test was a start-up. When I talk to people about pre-employment drug testing, companies that don't test seem to be the exception and those that do are the norm. Those that don't usually pay less and have trouble keeping positions filled.
My experience has been with both small and large companies. Currently I work for a startup but the only company I worked for that required drug screening was Motorola.
Any stats on what percentage of US jobs require drug testing?
Official? No. Just my own experience plus that of friends in the tech and non-tech industries. So far the only person I know whos had to have a drug screening was my brother for a mechanic job.
You realize of course that your post makes no sense.
I am glad I live in Europe, which is fast being overtaken by America in terms of stupid rules and stuff.
This all followed by the gem: Europe is much more free, but more expensive
So on the one hand you have more 'rules and stuff' there and you admit that America still has fewer rules yet Europe is 'much more free'. How exactly does that work?
Do you Americans wish for something like the UKs Data Protection Act? We have had that for 16 years now, and it has been updated to reflect the new Internet economy. You are allowed to find out about anything stored against you in databases, and to ask for that information to be changed or removed if it is incorrect.
I have yet to find an example of a database in the US where this isnt true as well.
What happens if someone starts selling that data to employers? Don't say it won't happen. Who would've thought 20 years ago that we'd all have to piss in a jar in the name of creating a safe working environment?
puh-lease. we all dont have to 'piss in a jar'. I've only worked at one place that required a urine test for drug screening and that place had a lot of people operating dangerous machinery. There are plenty of good and valid reasons to have drug screening. That is not to say that it couldn't be abused but please don't make it out that we're all being watched by Big Brother either.
I get so sick of these type of posts. Its this sort of crap that makes some people who live outside of the US think its some sort of police state (yes I do know several Europeans who had never been here who thought that).
You're not taking the time to respond to his points since you can't. Do you have any idea how badly we are fucking up this planet every day? Do you not find it totally unbelieveable that Monsanto and other agri-businesses are pushing their products on farmers without the slightest knowledge of what they will really do? The example of Bt and Monarch Butterflies was already mentioned. But hey...its just some lousy butterflies. Why worry about them? Do you not mind that many of the foods you eat contain genetically engineered/modified plants and no labeling is necessary? Do you buy into the fact that yes we need to keep dousing farms and farm workers with pesticides and fertilizers and monoculture fields in order to feed the world? Its been shown that organic farming techniques are not only healthier for consumers and farmers alike but that they end up giving the same yields as 'modern' techniques. Then why are we fucking with things as we are? Its all about money. That's all its ever about. Thankfully more and more people are becoming aware of these issues as has been seen in the phenominal growth of organic farming in this country and the rest of the world. Get your head out of the clouds. We here in North America can't continue our level of consumption as it stands. Youd think we learned something in the 70s after the last problem with gasoline but no....everyone and their brother thinks that they need to have an SUV. Now they bitch about the price of gas and how much its costing them to fill up. Hell, we havent even reached the cost of gas that Europeans have to pay. Enough ranting for one night.
The only thing worse than an incorrect post is a post correcting it that is also incorrect.
Yes it is worse. In your attempt at correction you forgot to mention Borland buying out Visigenic (maker of Visibroker CORBA stuff) and changing the name to Inprise.
Of course its not worth it for the RIAA to come after us in general because they posted record profits just recently;) Its only worth them going after those who mass copy copyrighted material. Usually the people doing that aren't following the laws anyway and of course the one hurt is the normal consumer.
So I can use a stereo that is capable of recording CDs to copy a CD, but I can't use a computer with a CD-R in it to copy CDs, even though they contain the (basicaly) the same hardware. The only real difference is the interface you have with the hardware. Riiiiiight. Uh...no. The difference isnt the interface with the hardware. The difference is that stand-alone cd recorders like the one Phillips makes needs special media. You can't use regular cdr media in those. Just like cassette tapes you've paid a fee in buying that media in order to be able to mak a copy. They have no way to make money from computer cdrs/cdr media so they come up with this. It's total BS.
TIVO is not an exact digital copy of a broadcast either. Its an MPEG2 stream which looks good but is not an exact copy. OTOH neither is a copy of a cd to a cdr since most cds dont rip tracks exactly - hence the need for jitter correction and/or different ripping modes to try to overlay sectors of the cd to get the best sound. still isnt a perfect copy.
. But it's no longer politic to simply send in the Knights Templar and squash the revolution.
Well...if you take history to be true then the group the study is talking about is a pretty damn good parallel to the Knights Templar. Started out as a small group and eventually had tons of money and power. Eventually got crushed because they were made out to be demon worshippers. Hopefully we wont see any geeks being burned at the stake anytime soon;)
Oh this is great. No. Let's not take into account the spirit and or time of something thats written. Lets just follow it word for word without thinking. *Real* smart. FYI the word is spelled 'ludicrous'
Actually, whether or not you've broken the law if you yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre depends on what ensues afterwards: If everyone just tells you to sit down and shut up, then you have not broken any law. If a riot breaks out, then your speech is no longer protected and you are liable and can be prosecuted.
Very true. Great example of freedom of speech not being absolute.
Um. I'm not sure if you realize this, but those two things are mutually dependent. The government cannot dictate policy by threatening armed force if and only if you and all your fellow citizens are able to own any weapon you want. Otherwise, the government has you outgunned and can dictate policy by threatening armed force. Duh.
Um...they are not necessarily mutually dependent. I can think of two great examples where being 'outgunned' made no difference at all: Vietnam for the US and Afghanistan for the Russians.
Is it really this hard to believe that the Constitution means what it says it means?
Yes. It is. You can *not* just read the Constitution word for word. Thats like saying 'hey...lets read the Bible word for word'.
Yes this is the typical 'lets only read whats written and not pay attention to anything else'. What are those 'elses'? The spirit in which the document is written, the time in which the document was written and the reasons why someone wrote the document in relation to the first two. Do you take the Bible word for word or do you view it more as parable or mythology? We don't have absolute freedom of speech in the United States. You can't just yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater and expect not to get in trouble. The idea of freedom of speech was created in opposition to political repression of unpopular ideas. The spirit was never so that some fool could spout whatever they wish without regard to anything or anyone (the fire example). I have a hard time believing the Founding Fathers had anarchy and 'I can do anything I want' in mind when they wrote about freedom of speech. This is like the gun issue. Did the spirit of the freedom to arm yourself refer to being able to own any weapon you want or to make sure that government would never again be able to dictate policy via the threat of armed force? Unfortunately we are too far removed in time to really understand the spirit in which the Constitution was written.
Slashdot Mirror
AKAIK the US Government was one of the biggest customers of Iridium. It makes sense for them to try to go after specific segments of the market. It was a dumb move in the first place to offer it as they did - as a service for anyone. The majority of people will never need 100% coverage. Any good business will go after a specific niche and dominate it. What they're doing now is what they should have done in the first place.
That's all fine and dandy but a job that sucks is a job that sucks regardless of how much you're being paid. If you're new to the IT industry you'll learn this soon enough. High pay is great when you first start but you'll eventually find out that bullshit hours and no life isn't worth what you're getting in return.
I can't believe this is listed as one of the main stories on the front page of slashdot. Javalobby.org also had it as a main story (I assume because of the MS bashing). After wasting my time reading his journal I decided to waste more reading some of his 'diatribes'. The 'tree hugger' one being particularly interesting. I loved the assumption the tree should be cut down because 'it attracts lightning'. Its been there for 600 years and this guy is worried about lightning. Then we get the thing about how it should be chopped down and made into furniture for 'the less fortunate'. I don't know what planet this guy is living on but here on Earth wood from a tree that old would certainly never end up in the home of someone whos poor. Worth too much money...doesnt this guy watch This Old House? :)
Christ...I'd almost kill for $1.36 a gallon ;) I live in illinois and the lowest I've found in the Chicago area for regular is $1.89. Chicago itself has the highest gas price in the lower 48.
Yeah...and why would anyone need more than a 2400 baud modem? Hell...I don't even understand why we have graphic displays...a green screen should be enough. What are you smoking man? Why on Earth would you possibly want to use gdb in line mode? Puh-lease.
I've not yet seen an IDE as scriptable as bash.
You haven't looked far enough then.
I've never seen an editor that lets you accomplish programming-related tasks than vi, although emacs is close and I admire many of its features.
Ditto to what I said above
I must admit, however, I am currently being swayed down the dark path of some of the nicer GUI debuggers out there...
You should have been swayed years ago. When I was in school most people used printfs for debugging (as I suspect they might still). Even after I showed them xxgdb and the like (later on DDD) they still didnt see the point. Meanwhile I turned in my programs faster.
While I wont argue about the ease of use of MySQL (have never used it) I will say that cost should not an issue at all for a well-funded company that needs a database backend. I'm not sure what types of sites youre referring to but any sort of commerce site would be nuts to use MySQL.
A lot of people, even given the funds to purchase a DB like Oracle, don't know how it works. Thus MySQL works well enough for them. They don't care about the lack of stored procedures because they've never used them before. They don't care about the high-load write performance problems because they won't have load.
This is complete bull. Give the funds to purchase something as expensive as Oracle you'd want to make sure you have the know-how to use it. If you didnt have the know-how it would be pointless to buy. And not caring about stored procedures just because you havent used them before is just plain stupid. That is like saying people don't care about buying a car that gets better gas mileage becuase they never used on before. IMHO any developer worth anything at all will be continually learning new ways to do things effeciently.
That being said why exactly would you want a PC in that small of a package? Sure...give us similar apps and 1/4 the functionality and make it harder to use (because of the size,etc). The reason the Palm has been successful as it has is because it does what most people want a PDA for right out of the box...contacts, todo list, appointments.
The reviewer assumed all you expect from a PDA is take a few notes and check your appointments - because that's what his Palm experience made him expect. Well, I'm sorry, but there's no reason why PDA should be restricted to this. MP3 for example is a great killer app for a PDA.
I can understand why the reviewer assumed that....because thats what most people buy them for and why the Palm has the marketshare it has. It fits those functions perfectly. I also don't quite get how MP3 is a 'great killer app' for a PDA. Its a cool, whiz-bang thing yes...it is not practical at all with the memory constraints these devices have out of the box. If you want to play MP3s in a portable fashion buy a device that is designed to do that. As to Palm devices and MP3 I'd assume that Handspring will have an MP3 Springboard module at some point.
What MS seems to be forgetting is that it makes no sense to duplicate desktop PC functionality in a handheld format. The one cool thing I think they included was the ebook reader. The rest seems awfully wasteful. The other thing that concerned me was the distinct lack of cohesion the WinCE UI seemed to have (according to the review...I haven't seen one of these personally). One thing that also makes the Palm products great is the UI.
Never found a good book on UML? There are plenty. The best examples I know of:
Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML by Meilir Page-Jones if you want a refresher on OO along with a good UML intro (enough UML there for most projects).
UML Distilled by Martin Fowler.
The Unified Modeling Language User Guide by Booch, Jacobson and Rumbaugh.
Great posting. Really. The funny thing is (at least in my experience) was that when I went to my 10 year HS reunion the majority of everyone were talking to one another. Nobody really gave a crap anymore. I just hope most teenagers now remember to think ahead and that HS is only 4 years of your life. Not a real short time but nonetheless not the end of the world. Hold on.
I am well-adjusted, moral, and probably finished ahead of 90% of you 'WAVE-approved' sheep.
If you want someone to listen to you I'd suggest that pointing out that you're smarter than they are (which you don't really know) or calling them 'sheep' is not a good way to go about getting their attention.
Trying to set yourself apart by saying you are 'the cream of society' isn't too brilliant either. So youre smart and your family is smart and you make a lot of money? Big whoop. Doesn't make you any better than anyone else.
The point of your post is well taken but losing a bit of the attitude might help just a little.
Care to share what other info is there and how you know about it?
In fact, according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (not a very accurate name), the Credit reporting companies don't really have to remove inaccurate information. Sure, you can send them a protest letter, but the incorrect information still stays on your report and you're still denied credit based on it.
Credit-reporting agencies are required to investigate any claims made about bogus information and reply within a certain amount of time. What you said about incorrect information staying on your report and still being denied credit based on it goes completely against my personal experience. I had several fuck-ups on my credit report where a charge card I had closed out years before was magically reopened and charged with something my mother bought. Of course I kept all the records that showed that the account had been closed for over 2 years and was paid in full. How did I find out about it? I was denied a checking account at a bank. Got my free yearly reports from all three agencies and found I had marks against me for this card for it being 120 days+ overdue. Sent them an investigation sheet along with my paperwork and guess what? The information was taken off and wasnt on the reports the next time I checked. And guess what? I was able to buy a car and get full financing as well as more credit cards.
As to your claims about the MIB please give references and I'll be happy to research it and see for myself.
My experience has been with both small and large companies. Currently I work for a startup but the only company I worked for that required drug screening was Motorola.
Any stats on what percentage of US jobs require drug testing?
Official? No. Just my own experience plus that of friends in the tech and non-tech industries. So far the only person I know whos had to have a drug screening was my brother for a mechanic job.
I am glad I live in Europe, which is fast being overtaken by America in terms of stupid rules and stuff.
This all followed by the gem: Europe is much more free, but more expensive
So on the one hand you have more 'rules and stuff' there and you admit that America still has fewer rules yet Europe is 'much more free'. How exactly does that work?
Do you Americans wish for something like the UKs Data Protection Act? We have had that for 16 years now, and it has been updated to reflect the new Internet economy. You are allowed to find out about anything stored against you in databases, and to ask for that information to be changed or removed if it is incorrect.
I have yet to find an example of a database in the US where this isnt true as well.
puh-lease. we all dont have to 'piss in a jar'. I've only worked at one place that required a urine test for drug screening and that place had a lot of people operating dangerous machinery. There are plenty of good and valid reasons to have drug screening. That is not to say that it couldn't be abused but please don't make it out that we're all being watched by Big Brother either.
I get so sick of these type of posts. Its this sort of crap that makes some people who live outside of the US think its some sort of police state (yes I do know several Europeans who had never been here who thought that).
You're not taking the time to respond to his points since you can't. Do you have any idea how badly we are fucking up this planet every day? Do you not find it totally unbelieveable that Monsanto and other agri-businesses are pushing their products on farmers without the slightest knowledge of what they will really do? The example of Bt and Monarch Butterflies was already mentioned. But hey...its just some lousy butterflies. Why worry about them? Do you not mind that many of the foods you eat contain genetically engineered/modified plants and no labeling is necessary? Do you buy into the fact that yes we need to keep dousing farms and farm workers with pesticides and fertilizers and monoculture fields in order to feed the world? Its been shown that organic farming techniques are not only healthier for consumers and farmers alike but that they end up giving the same yields as 'modern' techniques. Then why are we fucking with things as we are? Its all about money. That's all its ever about. Thankfully more and more people are becoming aware of these issues as has been seen in the phenominal growth of organic farming in this country and the rest of the world. Get your head out of the clouds. We here in North America can't continue our level of consumption as it stands. Youd think we learned something in the 70s after the last problem with gasoline but no....everyone and their brother thinks that they need to have an SUV. Now they bitch about the price of gas and how much its costing them to fill up. Hell, we havent even reached the cost of gas that Europeans have to pay. Enough ranting for one night.
Yes it is worse. In your attempt at correction you forgot to mention Borland buying out Visigenic (maker of Visibroker CORBA stuff) and changing the name to Inprise.
Of course its not worth it for the RIAA to come after us in general because they posted record profits just recently ;) Its only worth them going after those who mass copy copyrighted material. Usually the people doing that aren't following the laws anyway and of course the one hurt is the normal consumer.
So I can use a stereo that is capable of recording CDs to copy a CD, but I can't use a computer with a CD-R in it to copy CDs, even though they contain the (basicaly) the same hardware. The only real difference is the interface you have with the hardware. Riiiiiight. Uh...no. The difference isnt the interface with the hardware. The difference is that stand-alone cd recorders like the one Phillips makes needs special media. You can't use regular cdr media in those. Just like cassette tapes you've paid a fee in buying that media in order to be able to mak a copy. They have no way to make money from computer cdrs/cdr media so they come up with this. It's total BS.
TIVO is not an exact digital copy of a broadcast either. Its an MPEG2 stream which looks good but is not an exact copy. OTOH neither is a copy of a cd to a cdr since most cds dont rip tracks exactly - hence the need for jitter correction and/or different ripping modes to try to overlay sectors of the cd to get the best sound. still isnt a perfect copy.
Well...if you take history to be true then the group the study is talking about is a pretty damn good parallel to the Knights Templar. Started out as a small group and eventually had tons of money and power. Eventually got crushed because they were made out to be demon worshippers. Hopefully we wont see any geeks being burned at the stake anytime soon ;)
Who ever said you had to use their version of IE? Youre free to use Netscape, IE, ftp, whatever once you have your connection.
Oh this is great. No. Let's not take into account the spirit and or time of something thats written. Lets just follow it word for word without thinking. *Real* smart. FYI the word is spelled 'ludicrous'
Very true. Great example of freedom of speech not being absolute.
Um...they are not necessarily mutually dependent. I can think of two great examples where being 'outgunned' made no difference at all: Vietnam for the US and Afghanistan for the Russians.
Is it really this hard to believe that the Constitution means what it says it means?
Yes. It is. You can *not* just read the Constitution word for word. Thats like saying 'hey...lets read the Bible word for word'.
Yes this is the typical 'lets only read whats written and not pay attention to anything else'. What are those 'elses'? The spirit in which the document is written, the time in which the document was written and the reasons why someone wrote the document in relation to the first two. Do you take the Bible word for word or do you view it more as parable or mythology? We don't have absolute freedom of speech in the United States. You can't just yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater and expect not to get in trouble. The idea of freedom of speech was created in opposition to political repression of unpopular ideas. The spirit was never so that some fool could spout whatever they wish without regard to anything or anyone (the fire example). I have a hard time believing the Founding Fathers had anarchy and 'I can do anything I want' in mind when they wrote about freedom of speech. This is like the gun issue. Did the spirit of the freedom to arm yourself refer to being able to own any weapon you want or to make sure that government would never again be able to dictate policy via the threat of armed force? Unfortunately we are too far removed in time to really understand the spirit in which the Constitution was written.