That's sort of like ranting how the PC is vastly superior to the gaming console, and how the mouse is clearly the superlative input device compared to the gamepad because of its precision. All very true, but you're neglecting the *convenience* factor. It's incredibly convenient to have an all-in-one predesigned, prepackaged computer made for playing games that you just plug into your TV. Likewise, it's incredibly convenient for your phone to be able to act as a mobile computer without actually needing to lug around a laptop everywhere you go.
Despite ddt's comments being marked as "Troll" (sheesh, touchy about our phones much?), he actually has a point. In general, a phone is a pretty poor substitute for a full size physical keyboard. There are exceptions of course (users who text each other all day, or authors who write entire books on their phones), but I'd imagine the most common use cases for smartphones actually don't include a whole lot of typing. Phones and tablets excel at consuming content, not creating it. As such, a physical keyboard is, to some degree, working against the strengths of the smartphone - being as lightweight as possible relative to screen size and optimally designed for consuming content.
I think that's why you don't see a lot of physical keyboards anymore. Even if someone prefers the feel of a physical keyboard, does it really matter if the most common use case only requires them to swipe on the screen or speak commands the vast majority of the time as opposed to touch typing? More to the point, are they willing to sacrifice features and bulk for that keyboard? A few might, but most won't. At least, so goes the thinking of people who manufacture the things, I'd imagine.
How many reasons would you like? F-Droid has about a thousand apps to the Play store's 1.2 million. You have to install it through side channels. Relatively few in the mainstream have heard of it. None of the apps that people's friends or favorite websites are talking about are available on it. A quick peek at some of the new apps listed on the front page reveal these potential blockbusters:
* A guessing game: try to guess a number between 1 and 100 in under eight tries * A ROT-13 encoder/decoder * An ASCII/Hex/Ocal/Binary converter * Swimming distance calculator * TI graphing calculator emulator (no ROMs included)
It surprises you that people aren't flocking to this in droves? Look, nothing against F-Droid. It's cool that people are doing this, but let's keep our expectations grounded in reality.
sex is a physical need, how is this addressed for astronauts?
First, I'm afraid I can personally guarantee you that sex is NOT actually a physical need. Second, they're already astronauts, for heaven's sake! Do their sex lives really need enhancement? Fighter pilots and astronauts impress girls. Videogame programmers impress geeks. What was I thinking, damnit?
Here's how a REAL professional behaves. The CEO of Boeing told analysis that he makes his employees "cower", and actually thought that would be a funny joke. Everyone knew that Steve Jobs was something of an asshole. So is Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. A lot of the most famous and effective military leaders were real sons of bitches as well. Patton comes to mind, as does his long-time rival, Monty. Norman Schwarzkopf was known for his fiery temper, which gave him the nickname "Stormin' Norman".
Most professional communities are rather pragmatic, and ultimately rewards *success* above all else, unless you cross over a very big line, like doing something illegal, or embarrassing your company to such a degree that it has a negative effect on business (e.g. Patton slapping a soldier). There may something about those personality types that are driven to succeed. It's not universal, of course. Pete Carrol, the head coach of last year's Superbowl winning Seattle Seahawks, is known for being a very nice and laid-back guy, and doesn't fit the typical mode of the "screamer" type coaches we've all seen.
Look, I'm not going to defend Torvold's rants. I think they're childish as well, but let's not kid ourselves. These sort of rants and worse happen all the time in "professional" environments. Would it be great if people were universally nicer to each other? Sure. But when getting a job done, is being nice or being competent more important?
At least he hasn't tossed any chairs around that we know of.
Arret Sur Images reports that this is the first example of an amateur, unpaid blogger having to pay damages for a negative review. Doudet sees this as part of a growing problem around freedom of speech. "Recently several writers in France were sentenced in similar proceedings for defamation, invasion of privacy, and so on. And I find it really serious if we no longer have the freedom to write," she says. "I don't see the point of criticism if it's only positive. It's clear that online, people are suspicious of places that only get positive reviews."
This is apparently the first instance of an amateur blogger being sued because of a negative review, which is sort of the definition of a legal precedent, isn't it? I agree, though, that it's probably not national policy, and I very much doubt it's in the spirit of the law. That's of little comfort to someone on the sharp end of a bad court decision though, and seems awfully likely to have a chilling effect to some degree.
Well, I don't hate Samsung at all, but Apple has some pretty dedicated fans, or at least a ton of folks who love their iDevices. So, when the companies do legal battle, Samsung will naturally generate some hate. And given that one is the natural "home team" versus the "away team", it probably makes sense that more will root for Apple than Samsung, all else being equal. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
Note that I said I don't "hate" them, but that doesn't mean I "like" any of them either. I've always found it fascinating how people feel the need to leap to the defense of a multi-billion dollar mega-corporation to defend its products or policies (phones, console wars, etc), but have never understood it myself. I'll pick out the best product that works for me, and if the company tries to screw me over, I'll look for a competitor's products.
Oh, don't worry, the French are already doing that. Fortunately, this particular case demonstrated the Striesand Effect can still kick a bully's ass from time to time.
According to Reuters, one topic of conversation will be the fact that results are only censored on European versions of Google, like Google.co.uk. So EU Web users can simply go to Google.com for full results, which some argue defeats the purpose of the ruling.
So, Europe would like to be able to affect what everyone sees, not just what Europe sees. I understand the need for privacy, but how certain are we that this won't devolve into plain old censorship? Are there some case histories that have been problematic that we should be aware of? The EU seems to have Google in their sights, but I'm not sure what Google did to get them quite so riled up. I remember Google's accidental collection of wifi info (the more cynical may put "accidental" in quotes, but it looked rather inadvertent to me. Besides which, the data was in the clear to begin with). Then there's the anti-trust issue, if I recall correctly, which I never quite understood either.
Have there been other incidents? Why the hell do they hate Google so much? I'm not exactly a Google fanboy myself, but it's probably good for Microsoft and Apple to have some serious competition.
You are mistaken. The US actually tried to minimize civilian casualties at the cost of greater US casualties. For example the US bombers generally conducted daytime raids so they could better identify targets and do precision bombing.
Don't misunderstand the US intentions during WWII. The theory going into the war was that air power alone could destroy a country's infrastructure and win the war alone. Obviously, that turned out in hindsight to be wildly optimistic, but they did put a lot of additional pressure on industrial production. The idea was to more effectively damage war industries. I don't recall seeing evidence that avoiding civilian casualties was a significant goal. Cities were avoided early in the war simply for fear of retaliation, but once a single accidental bombing triggered reciprocal bombings by the British, both allies and axis forces bombed civilians with gusto. The US was simply fortunate to be too far away to be attacked effectively, although the Japanese certainly tried *.
Look up the Dresden or Tokyo firebombings. The scale of destruction in those attacks was comparable to an atomic bomb attack of the time. In short, they were horrific events, and supposedly, even the hardened Winston Churchill supposedly blanched when he saw the damage that had been done in those attacks. Curtis LeMay, head of the US army air corp, once remarked that he probably would have been tried as a war criminal had the US lost the war. That being said, we have to be fair - there WERE no such things as "smart" weapons (the Germans had the only one, as I recall), so there simply was no way to really avoid civilian casualties. The Japanese, in particular, utilized a lot of small, widely dispersed cottage industries, so there was little chance of precision strikes anyhow.
I think it's hard for modern civilians to put ourselves into the mindset of that war. Had we not bombed the Japanese into surrender, some US planners estimated that our troops would have suffered anywhere from half a million to several million casualties attempting to take the Japanese mainland, and up to 10 million Japanese would likely have perished, having demonstrated a frighting propensity for defending to the death. What's more, it's possible the Soviet Union would have invaded as well, and Japan may well have been split into communist and western spheres, like so many other post-war nations. Interesting fact from Wikipedia: We manufactured so many purple hearts in anticipation of that invasion (500,000) that we were able to use that stockpile of combat medals for the next 50+ years. We probably have about a hundred thousand or so left until we have to make a new batch.
As horrible as it sounds, the hammer blows of the nuclear bombs may have saved millions of lives, including Japanese lives. There was no real evidence that the Japanese were entertaining surrender at that time. Dropping a nuke on inhabited cities is neither something to be proud of, nor should we expect forgiveness for it, but it's important to see the actions in their proper context. It was an ugly finish to an ugly war, and we should be glad we haven't seen anything like it since.
I don't mean to belittle those who feel strongly against weapon development (ok, maybe just a bit of teasing). After all, if more people felt like them, the world would probably be a better place for everyone. Even so, I think it's best to keep a realistic view of the current world situation, and to keep a broader historical perspective in mind.
* We had our own wacky bomb project designed to strike back at Japan, but unlike the Japanese balloon bombs, the project never saw fruition. Likewise, the British had
Exactly. I had to laugh when reading that article:
But the military isn’t just interested in saving lives—more often than not, it takes them.
Really? No shit. The military kills people?
In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost
Isn't this what we want all government agencies to strive for? When the military's actual job is to figure out how to kill people and destroy things with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, then we really shouldn't complain when they seem to be doing a good job of it. I'm not exactly sure what this writer thought the military's purpose is, but he seems horrified at the thought of using technology to kill people more efficiently.
So, there we have it. While comparatively small-scale dangers like homebrew plastic guns make headlines, one of the most powerful and deadly organizations in the world is using the same technology to build better weapons of mass destruction on the cheap.
Should the US not develop technologies like this and simply hope no one else does either? People today are so damned sure that we'll never get into another large-scale shooting war. I hope to hell we don't, but if we do, I'd like our side to have the best weapons, and all the better if they're efficient to produce. Even if, in the future, the military is scaled down to paramilitary forces level (small, lean and efficient), wouldn't it be better to outfit them inexpensively rather than spending billions on weapons production? Who the hell would advocate spending more of our budget on rockets and bombs when less expensive devices could be made much cheaper (other than weapons manufacturers, I suppose)? Wouldn't that leave more money to spend on better things?
The author got one thing right. For all it gets wrong (and I'm sure actual military folks could provide plenty of stories), the US military arguably is the most lethal and destructive force the world has ever known. They also don't go off killing random people and blowing things up. Elected civilians are the ones who ultimately decide whether or not to pull the trigger. It's easy enough to demonize the military while conveniently forgetting that they guy you voted for is the one sending them out to kill people, but it's dishonest as hell.
Environmentalism is too close to a religion for many. As such, any environmental issue also becomes a religious argument with all the pitfalls that entails. Try telling some people that "nature" is not some benevolent entity that cares about ecological diversity, balance, and harmony, and they'll look like you like a Southern Baptist might if you had just spit on baby Jesus (nothing against Southern Baptists... for some reason I just imagine they'd react with a bit more horror than us Northern Presbyterians).
I'll take a slight issue with point #3. Unthinking invasive species will often unthinkingly devastate their own environment in the process of proliferation, which can result in their own devastation as well. It behooves us to modify our own behavior to preserve our best chance at long-term success. I'd argue that this is also part of evolution, albeit one we haven't seen before, simply because we're the first known example of successful evolution based on intelligence at our level, rather than relying solely on physical or instinctive behavioral adaptation.
As such, we should theoretically be able to modify our own behavior based on long term strategies which only intelligence allows us to forecast, rather than resorting to simple instinct. Our societies and infrastructures are largely built on those sorts of long-term forecasts and strategies, so extending the concept to our greater environment should be possible. Whether we do it or not is another matter, of course.
Of course, people are only going to start caring about more theoretical, long-term issue when they don't have to devote so much energy towards immediate survival. That means we need to get the rest of humanity on the fast track to prosperity, because only after that occurs will a critical mass of people be able to focus more on longer-term issues like sustaining a healthy environment. That's a nicer way of saying that environmentalism is a rich person's pastime. When a man is simply trying to keep warm during the winter, he won't give a shit about whether chopping down too many trees is causing environmental damage. He's understandably focused on the immediate problem of not freezing to death.
I wonder how much resistance a theory like this gets just because feathered dinosaurs wouldn't look nearly as cool as the ones we see pictured today? The emotional part of my brain finds itself not wanting to spoil my childhood images of what dinosaurs looked like by pasting silly-looking feathers all over them, even while the intellectual part is berating it for being silly. I suppose it's the same sort of phenomenon as the outcry over Pluto being "demoted" from planet status. Humans are funny.
Our smug-as-hipsters-in-a-coffeeshop Seattlite neighbors aside (yeah, I live in one of those suburbs), we actually have really good, reasonably priced water here, unless you're of the opinion that fluoride is poisoning your kids, I suppose.
Our water is very soft and some of the best tasting water around. Whenever our family drove our RV down to California (this was obviously years ago when gas wasn't priced like now - it was cheaper than flying + renting hotels), one of our most precious resources was our on-board supply of Washington water. We couldn't stand the hard stuff you'd get down there, especially in the LA area.
One day, as we drove the RV over a driveway curb, the water cap got knocked off. We panicked, trying to put the cap back on to save our precious water as though it were liquid gold. Our hosts, who's driveway we were watering, couldn't understand our consternation. Don't worry, they said, you can just refill your tank with our water. But, we protested, this is Washington water! They looked at us like we were nuts.
Windows users: set a system-wide proxy and watch the traffic to Microsoft on a regular basis. Windows update, CRL, other mysterious links, and of course their associated DNS queries. How much bandwidth does that suck up?
Window Update? How dare Microsoft regularly and automatically patch known security flaws in their OS and other software.
To summarize the summary: "The most striking finding is that...it was not extraordinary."
Not to belittle the loss of those involved but it's always a bit much that 43 dead in the US = catastrophe. If this had happened in Asia or Africa it wouldn't make the news unless hundreds or thousands had been killed.
Who cares what it's called? No one I know of is trying to compare this to the horrific losses in Japan after the tsunami, or other major disasters around the world. It was a big deal to us here in WA state (and I heard the terms "disaster" and "tragedy" used more often anyhow). An entire square mile of mud 10 to 40 feet thick wiped entire families and/or all their property from the face of the earth in an instance. Whatever you want to call it, it was pretty awful for everyone involved - including the rescuers.
If my next-door neighbor gets robbed or had their house burned down, that would be a big deal to our local little neighborhood. Someone in the next town over might sympathize, if they heard about it at all. It wouldn't get reported on the other side of the country. That's just the reality of life, and it's nothing to wring our hands over.
I'll agree with your premise that assholes are assholes, though, and yes, I've met my share of them (there are plenty of middle-class and rich assholes too, in case you missed it). But I think a much smaller percentage of assholes have the courage to say nasty things right to someone's face, on the record, and with the possibility of immediate retaliation. If the only think that keeps their piehole shut is the possible consequences, legal or otherwise, that's fine by me.
Oh, and for what it's worth, anti-sexism laws haven't changed how "middle-class people view women". The laws are just a reflection of changing mores in society. I'd say you've got cause and effect reversed. The majority of people collectively decided it was no longer acceptable to sexually harass co-workers/underlings and later dismiss it with a wink and nod. Seriously, read some of the shit these women have had to put up with. There's no goddamn excuse for that - none at all. And I'm not going to excuse it no matter what someone's social or economic position is. And fuck anyone else who tries to excuse it for any reason, because they're part of the problem as well.
I'll admit I was a little relieved after actually reading the article. I assumed it was talking about harassment of male game developers towards female coworkers, which would have really surprised me. I've worked in the industry for over fifteen years, and I've never even heard of any sort of sexism toward the women that were employed alongside me. It simply wouldn't have been tolerated at the places I've worked, so far as I know, and that's a good thing. While the programming department was, of course, largely male, the other departments (art, design, writing, production) were more evenly split. Everyone I've known has valued talent and hard work, and gender was pretty much an afterthought, at least so far as I could tell. Then again, I'm a guy, so I'm probably not quite as attuned to that sort of thing.
In fact, the article seems to be mostly about women (largely in the gaming press) interacting with the still-all-too-ugly disposition of the anonymous hoards of gaming fans that interact with them. That made a bit more sense to me, unfortunately, as such women are by nature already public figures, and will probably attract a lot more bile. Let's face it. People on the internet, including (especially?) gamers, are not only sexist, they're racist, homophobic, and unbelievably cruel at time. I care a lot about the gaming culture and community, and it pains me to admit this. There's a shocking disconnect between what would be acceptable in real life versus what's said online. I'd imagine very few of those idiots would ever have the courage to say those things to someone's face.
The only way to deal with this is absolute zero tolerance policies, at least on forums (literal or otherwise) that you have any control over. There's simply no excuse for this sort of behavior. The internet could really stand to collectively grow up a little, and realize that being anonymous shouldn't give you a free license to be an asshat. Frankly, I don't think that "normal" people turn into foul-mouth talking assholes when online and anonymous. My feeling is that they were assholes to begin with, but just didn't have the courage to say those things to anyone's face. These folks are not going to go away, I'm sorry to say. It would be nice if human nature could evolve a bit. But that doesn't mean anyone has to put up with this sort of shit any more than necessary. I'm also sorry to say that as a man, I'm pretty sure I'll never understand how a woman feels when she goes through something like this, and it makes me angry that so many would have to.
Did you even read to the end of the first paragraph? I'll quote myself again:
Counterpoint: Even water is poisonous if too much of it is drunk, so we have to be careful of not reading too much into this thought experiment. It's just to clarify the effects in our minds.
I'm acknowledging that even a good thing can be bad in doses too large. The point of the thought experiment is to clarify exactly what the side effects would be. Would those side effects take place in smaller scales with a smaller increase? If that's the case, then is doing this a wise idea, knowing we'll introduce those negative effects?
In fact, I'm not entirely convinced it would NOT be worthwhile to take our chances (although I remain skeptical). Again, I'll quote myself.
My feeling is that it's not a simple binary issue, more of a scale, where a smaller increase can be beneficial, but larger increases could be significantly detrimental (mostly through inflationary pressure, not necessary unemployment).
In other words, I'm not necessarily opposed to modest increases. I'm just saying we have to be very careful not to rush forward increases too large before we really understand the full ramifications of doing this.
Sheesh. This is what happens when issues get too damned political. People just stop listening once they figure out what side they think you're on.
Speaking as a conservative, I just don't think that trying to artificially adjusting market forces will have a net benefit on the lower working class. It has nothing to do with siding with businesses or hating poor people for whatever reason. I want people to succeed, and the best way to do that is to provide people with the best opportunity to do that for themselves. But it seems unlikely to me that you can pass a law and magically increase a bunch of people's living standards without negatively impacting others in an unanticipated way. Economic reality isn't quite that simple or forgiving, unfortunately, and we live in reality, not a fairyland of good intentions. People on the lower ends of the economic ladder are the first to suffer if the experiment goes awry, which is what I'm afraid of.
Honestly, I'd love to be proven wrong on this, because it's a hard position to take, and it would be great if we could actually help people this way. But the articles in the summary don't give any clear evidence one way or another, as they admit causality can't really be demonstrated. I think it's worthwhile to proceed with cautious increases and carefully watch the results, and do our best to extrapolate results to decide future policies. Unfortunately, I fear this issue has already become too political to avoid coloring opinion and studies, but I guess we'll see.
Conservatives truly do not, on a very fundamental level, understand how hard it is to move up rungs on the income ladder when you're at the bottom.
To do the conservative fantasy, and take smart risks which hard work turns into prosperity you need something to risk. Which you don't have unless you're in a City with a) a very high minimum wage or b) excellent mass transit. In the US b) means Chicago or New York.
I've heard very few claim that it's *easy* to move up in life economically, but many argue it's *possible* in the vast majority of cases. Moreover, there's an important distinction to make between equality of opportunity and equality of results. Most conservatives I've talked to seem to understand this fact very well, because a lot of them have lived through it, or have seen their parents or grandparents do it.
I'd suggest a thought experiment: if a small increase in minimum wage is good, why not a large one? What would happen if you made it $25 an hour? What about $100? Counterpoint: Even water is poisonous if too much of it is drunk, so we have to be careful of not reading too much into this thought experiment. It's just to clarify the effects in our minds.
If the cost of hiring employees goes up, the operational costs of a business also goes up. That's simply indisputable (at least, I'd hope no one here would dispute simple math). For many businesses, labor is a very significant portion of their budget. There are only a few realistic options for businesses that I can think of. I've ordered them what I would guess to be the order of probability:
1) Decrease benefits or cut worker hours (especially overtime). 2) Hire fewer workers or reduce staff to compensate. 3) Increase prices, passing the cost along to the consumers. 4) Accept lower profit margins.
It's not because the companies are evil, but neither are they good or altruistic. They're in business to make a profit - that's the entire point of business, and more to the point, *can't survive* if they don't. Many small businesses have razor-thin profit margins as is. So, #4 automatically comes last. #3 is second to last because most businesses are in competition with others, and can't arbitrarily raise prices without hurting their business overall. So, that option has to be used very cautiously, and then only if the same trend occurs among competitors.
Personally, I think it's simply a matter of deciding if we want to accept the consequences of a minimum wage, and whether that overrides the positive net effects. My feeling is that it's not a simple binary issue, more of a scale, where a smaller increase can be beneficial, but larger increases could be significantly detrimental (mostly through inflationary pressure, not necessary unemployment).
To me, this is similar to the taxation issue, which you mentioned. At some point, the drain on the economy outstrips the benefits of high tax rates, so the trick is to find the rate that combines economic benefit with government funding, combined with the moral question of how much money the government should be collecting from its citizens overall.
Slashdot Mirror
That's sort of like ranting how the PC is vastly superior to the gaming console, and how the mouse is clearly the superlative input device compared to the gamepad because of its precision. All very true, but you're neglecting the *convenience* factor. It's incredibly convenient to have an all-in-one predesigned, prepackaged computer made for playing games that you just plug into your TV. Likewise, it's incredibly convenient for your phone to be able to act as a mobile computer without actually needing to lug around a laptop everywhere you go.
Despite ddt's comments being marked as "Troll" (sheesh, touchy about our phones much?), he actually has a point. In general, a phone is a pretty poor substitute for a full size physical keyboard. There are exceptions of course (users who text each other all day, or authors who write entire books on their phones), but I'd imagine the most common use cases for smartphones actually don't include a whole lot of typing. Phones and tablets excel at consuming content, not creating it. As such, a physical keyboard is, to some degree, working against the strengths of the smartphone - being as lightweight as possible relative to screen size and optimally designed for consuming content.
I think that's why you don't see a lot of physical keyboards anymore. Even if someone prefers the feel of a physical keyboard, does it really matter if the most common use case only requires them to swipe on the screen or speak commands the vast majority of the time as opposed to touch typing? More to the point, are they willing to sacrifice features and bulk for that keyboard? A few might, but most won't. At least, so goes the thinking of people who manufacture the things, I'd imagine.
How many reasons would you like? F-Droid has about a thousand apps to the Play store's 1.2 million. You have to install it through side channels. Relatively few in the mainstream have heard of it. None of the apps that people's friends or favorite websites are talking about are available on it. A quick peek at some of the new apps listed on the front page reveal these potential blockbusters:
* A guessing game: try to guess a number between 1 and 100 in under eight tries
* A ROT-13 encoder/decoder
* An ASCII/Hex/Ocal/Binary converter
* Swimming distance calculator
* TI graphing calculator emulator (no ROMs included)
It surprises you that people aren't flocking to this in droves? Look, nothing against F-Droid. It's cool that people are doing this, but let's keep our expectations grounded in reality.
Sigh... whoosh? Apparently, I also made a wise choice in becoming a programmer rather than an entertainer of any sort.
sex is a physical need, how is this addressed for astronauts?
First, I'm afraid I can personally guarantee you that sex is NOT actually a physical need. Second, they're already astronauts, for heaven's sake! Do their sex lives really need enhancement? Fighter pilots and astronauts impress girls. Videogame programmers impress geeks. What was I thinking, damnit?
Here's how a REAL professional behaves. The CEO of Boeing told analysis that he makes his employees "cower", and actually thought that would be a funny joke. Everyone knew that Steve Jobs was something of an asshole. So is Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. A lot of the most famous and effective military leaders were real sons of bitches as well. Patton comes to mind, as does his long-time rival, Monty. Norman Schwarzkopf was known for his fiery temper, which gave him the nickname "Stormin' Norman".
Most professional communities are rather pragmatic, and ultimately rewards *success* above all else, unless you cross over a very big line, like doing something illegal, or embarrassing your company to such a degree that it has a negative effect on business (e.g. Patton slapping a soldier). There may something about those personality types that are driven to succeed. It's not universal, of course. Pete Carrol, the head coach of last year's Superbowl winning Seattle Seahawks, is known for being a very nice and laid-back guy, and doesn't fit the typical mode of the "screamer" type coaches we've all seen.
Look, I'm not going to defend Torvold's rants. I think they're childish as well, but let's not kid ourselves. These sort of rants and worse happen all the time in "professional" environments. Would it be great if people were universally nicer to each other? Sure. But when getting a job done, is being nice or being competent more important?
At least he hasn't tossed any chairs around that we know of.
From the article I linked to:
Arret Sur Images reports that this is the first example of an amateur, unpaid blogger having to pay damages for a negative review. Doudet sees this as part of a growing problem around freedom of speech. "Recently several writers in France were sentenced in similar proceedings for defamation, invasion of privacy, and so on. And I find it really serious if we no longer have the freedom to write," she says. "I don't see the point of criticism if it's only positive. It's clear that online, people are suspicious of places that only get positive reviews."
This is apparently the first instance of an amateur blogger being sued because of a negative review, which is sort of the definition of a legal precedent, isn't it? I agree, though, that it's probably not national policy, and I very much doubt it's in the spirit of the law. That's of little comfort to someone on the sharp end of a bad court decision though, and seems awfully likely to have a chilling effect to some degree.
Could you follow that link of mine and double-check to see if we're talking about the same case? Because it sure doesn't sound like it to me.
Well, I don't hate Samsung at all, but Apple has some pretty dedicated fans, or at least a ton of folks who love their iDevices. So, when the companies do legal battle, Samsung will naturally generate some hate. And given that one is the natural "home team" versus the "away team", it probably makes sense that more will root for Apple than Samsung, all else being equal. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
Note that I said I don't "hate" them, but that doesn't mean I "like" any of them either. I've always found it fascinating how people feel the need to leap to the defense of a multi-billion dollar mega-corporation to defend its products or policies (phones, console wars, etc), but have never understood it myself. I'll pick out the best product that works for me, and if the company tries to screw me over, I'll look for a competitor's products.
Oh, don't worry, the French are already doing that. Fortunately, this particular case demonstrated the Striesand Effect can still kick a bully's ass from time to time.
Know what else is a slippery slope? This.
According to Reuters, one topic of conversation will be the fact that results are only censored on European versions of Google, like Google.co.uk. So EU Web users can simply go to Google.com for full results, which some argue defeats the purpose of the ruling.
So, Europe would like to be able to affect what everyone sees, not just what Europe sees. I understand the need for privacy, but how certain are we that this won't devolve into plain old censorship? Are there some case histories that have been problematic that we should be aware of? The EU seems to have Google in their sights, but I'm not sure what Google did to get them quite so riled up. I remember Google's accidental collection of wifi info (the more cynical may put "accidental" in quotes, but it looked rather inadvertent to me. Besides which, the data was in the clear to begin with). Then there's the anti-trust issue, if I recall correctly, which I never quite understood either.
Have there been other incidents? Why the hell do they hate Google so much? I'm not exactly a Google fanboy myself, but it's probably good for Microsoft and Apple to have some serious competition.
Yeah, being repressed sucks.
You are mistaken. The US actually tried to minimize civilian casualties at the cost of greater US casualties. For example the US bombers generally conducted daytime raids so they could better identify targets and do precision bombing.
Don't misunderstand the US intentions during WWII. The theory going into the war was that air power alone could destroy a country's infrastructure and win the war alone. Obviously, that turned out in hindsight to be wildly optimistic, but they did put a lot of additional pressure on industrial production. The idea was to more effectively damage war industries. I don't recall seeing evidence that avoiding civilian casualties was a significant goal. Cities were avoided early in the war simply for fear of retaliation, but once a single accidental bombing triggered reciprocal bombings by the British, both allies and axis forces bombed civilians with gusto. The US was simply fortunate to be too far away to be attacked effectively, although the Japanese certainly tried *.
Look up the Dresden or Tokyo firebombings. The scale of destruction in those attacks was comparable to an atomic bomb attack of the time. In short, they were horrific events, and supposedly, even the hardened Winston Churchill supposedly blanched when he saw the damage that had been done in those attacks. Curtis LeMay, head of the US army air corp, once remarked that he probably would have been tried as a war criminal had the US lost the war. That being said, we have to be fair - there WERE no such things as "smart" weapons (the Germans had the only one, as I recall), so there simply was no way to really avoid civilian casualties. The Japanese, in particular, utilized a lot of small, widely dispersed cottage industries, so there was little chance of precision strikes anyhow.
I think it's hard for modern civilians to put ourselves into the mindset of that war. Had we not bombed the Japanese into surrender, some US planners estimated that our troops would have suffered anywhere from half a million to several million casualties attempting to take the Japanese mainland, and up to 10 million Japanese would likely have perished, having demonstrated a frighting propensity for defending to the death. What's more, it's possible the Soviet Union would have invaded as well, and Japan may well have been split into communist and western spheres, like so many other post-war nations. Interesting fact from Wikipedia: We manufactured so many purple hearts in anticipation of that invasion (500,000) that we were able to use that stockpile of combat medals for the next 50+ years. We probably have about a hundred thousand or so left until we have to make a new batch.
As horrible as it sounds, the hammer blows of the nuclear bombs may have saved millions of lives, including Japanese lives. There was no real evidence that the Japanese were entertaining surrender at that time. Dropping a nuke on inhabited cities is neither something to be proud of, nor should we expect forgiveness for it, but it's important to see the actions in their proper context. It was an ugly finish to an ugly war, and we should be glad we haven't seen anything like it since.
I don't mean to belittle those who feel strongly against weapon development (ok, maybe just a bit of teasing). After all, if more people felt like them, the world would probably be a better place for everyone. Even so, I think it's best to keep a realistic view of the current world situation, and to keep a broader historical perspective in mind.
* We had our own wacky bomb project designed to strike back at Japan, but unlike the Japanese balloon bombs, the project never saw fruition. Likewise, the British had
Exactly. I had to laugh when reading that article:
But the military isn’t just interested in saving lives—more often than not, it takes them.
Really? No shit. The military kills people?
In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost
Isn't this what we want all government agencies to strive for? When the military's actual job is to figure out how to kill people and destroy things with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, then we really shouldn't complain when they seem to be doing a good job of it. I'm not exactly sure what this writer thought the military's purpose is, but he seems horrified at the thought of using technology to kill people more efficiently.
So, there we have it. While comparatively small-scale dangers like homebrew plastic guns make headlines, one of the most powerful and deadly organizations in the world is using the same technology to build better weapons of mass destruction on the cheap.
Should the US not develop technologies like this and simply hope no one else does either? People today are so damned sure that we'll never get into another large-scale shooting war. I hope to hell we don't, but if we do, I'd like our side to have the best weapons, and all the better if they're efficient to produce. Even if, in the future, the military is scaled down to paramilitary forces level (small, lean and efficient), wouldn't it be better to outfit them inexpensively rather than spending billions on weapons production? Who the hell would advocate spending more of our budget on rockets and bombs when less expensive devices could be made much cheaper (other than weapons manufacturers, I suppose)? Wouldn't that leave more money to spend on better things?
The author got one thing right. For all it gets wrong (and I'm sure actual military folks could provide plenty of stories), the US military arguably is the most lethal and destructive force the world has ever known. They also don't go off killing random people and blowing things up. Elected civilians are the ones who ultimately decide whether or not to pull the trigger. It's easy enough to demonize the military while conveniently forgetting that they guy you voted for is the one sending them out to kill people, but it's dishonest as hell.
Environmentalism is too close to a religion for many. As such, any environmental issue also becomes a religious argument with all the pitfalls that entails. Try telling some people that "nature" is not some benevolent entity that cares about ecological diversity, balance, and harmony, and they'll look like you like a Southern Baptist might if you had just spit on baby Jesus (nothing against Southern Baptists... for some reason I just imagine they'd react with a bit more horror than us Northern Presbyterians).
I'll take a slight issue with point #3. Unthinking invasive species will often unthinkingly devastate their own environment in the process of proliferation, which can result in their own devastation as well. It behooves us to modify our own behavior to preserve our best chance at long-term success. I'd argue that this is also part of evolution, albeit one we haven't seen before, simply because we're the first known example of successful evolution based on intelligence at our level, rather than relying solely on physical or instinctive behavioral adaptation.
As such, we should theoretically be able to modify our own behavior based on long term strategies which only intelligence allows us to forecast, rather than resorting to simple instinct. Our societies and infrastructures are largely built on those sorts of long-term forecasts and strategies, so extending the concept to our greater environment should be possible. Whether we do it or not is another matter, of course.
Of course, people are only going to start caring about more theoretical, long-term issue when they don't have to devote so much energy towards immediate survival. That means we need to get the rest of humanity on the fast track to prosperity, because only after that occurs will a critical mass of people be able to focus more on longer-term issues like sustaining a healthy environment. That's a nicer way of saying that environmentalism is a rich person's pastime. When a man is simply trying to keep warm during the winter, he won't give a shit about whether chopping down too many trees is causing environmental damage. He's understandably focused on the immediate problem of not freezing to death.
I wonder how much resistance a theory like this gets just because feathered dinosaurs wouldn't look nearly as cool as the ones we see pictured today? The emotional part of my brain finds itself not wanting to spoil my childhood images of what dinosaurs looked like by pasting silly-looking feathers all over them, even while the intellectual part is berating it for being silly. I suppose it's the same sort of phenomenon as the outcry over Pluto being "demoted" from planet status. Humans are funny.
Our smug-as-hipsters-in-a-coffeeshop Seattlite neighbors aside (yeah, I live in one of those suburbs), we actually have really good, reasonably priced water here, unless you're of the opinion that fluoride is poisoning your kids, I suppose.
Our water is very soft and some of the best tasting water around. Whenever our family drove our RV down to California (this was obviously years ago when gas wasn't priced like now - it was cheaper than flying + renting hotels), one of our most precious resources was our on-board supply of Washington water. We couldn't stand the hard stuff you'd get down there, especially in the LA area.
One day, as we drove the RV over a driveway curb, the water cap got knocked off. We panicked, trying to put the cap back on to save our precious water as though it were liquid gold. Our hosts, who's driveway we were watering, couldn't understand our consternation. Don't worry, they said, you can just refill your tank with our water. But, we protested, this is Washington water! They looked at us like we were nuts.
Or perhaps he wanted to open the PDF in a window. One would think that should be fairly easy. You know... in Microsoft Windows.
Windows users: set a system-wide proxy and watch the traffic to Microsoft on a regular basis. Windows update, CRL, other mysterious links, and of course their associated DNS queries. How much bandwidth does that suck up?
Window Update? How dare Microsoft regularly and automatically patch known security flaws in their OS and other software.
*shakes fist in Redmond's general direction*
To summarize the summary: "The most striking finding is that...it was not extraordinary."
Not to belittle the loss of those involved but it's always a bit much that 43 dead in the US = catastrophe. If this had happened in Asia or Africa it wouldn't make the news unless hundreds or thousands had been killed.
Who cares what it's called? No one I know of is trying to compare this to the horrific losses in Japan after the tsunami, or other major disasters around the world. It was a big deal to us here in WA state (and I heard the terms "disaster" and "tragedy" used more often anyhow). An entire square mile of mud 10 to 40 feet thick wiped entire families and/or all their property from the face of the earth in an instance. Whatever you want to call it, it was pretty awful for everyone involved - including the rescuers.
If my next-door neighbor gets robbed or had their house burned down, that would be a big deal to our local little neighborhood. Someone in the next town over might sympathize, if they heard about it at all. It wouldn't get reported on the other side of the country. That's just the reality of life, and it's nothing to wring our hands over.
I'll agree with your premise that assholes are assholes, though, and yes, I've met my share of them (there are plenty of middle-class and rich assholes too, in case you missed it). But I think a much smaller percentage of assholes have the courage to say nasty things right to someone's face, on the record, and with the possibility of immediate retaliation. If the only think that keeps their piehole shut is the possible consequences, legal or otherwise, that's fine by me.
Oh, and for what it's worth, anti-sexism laws haven't changed how "middle-class people view women". The laws are just a reflection of changing mores in society. I'd say you've got cause and effect reversed. The majority of people collectively decided it was no longer acceptable to sexually harass co-workers/underlings and later dismiss it with a wink and nod. Seriously, read some of the shit these women have had to put up with. There's no goddamn excuse for that - none at all. And I'm not going to excuse it no matter what someone's social or economic position is. And fuck anyone else who tries to excuse it for any reason, because they're part of the problem as well.
I'll admit I was a little relieved after actually reading the article. I assumed it was talking about harassment of male game developers towards female coworkers, which would have really surprised me. I've worked in the industry for over fifteen years, and I've never even heard of any sort of sexism toward the women that were employed alongside me. It simply wouldn't have been tolerated at the places I've worked, so far as I know, and that's a good thing. While the programming department was, of course, largely male, the other departments (art, design, writing, production) were more evenly split. Everyone I've known has valued talent and hard work, and gender was pretty much an afterthought, at least so far as I could tell. Then again, I'm a guy, so I'm probably not quite as attuned to that sort of thing.
In fact, the article seems to be mostly about women (largely in the gaming press) interacting with the still-all-too-ugly disposition of the anonymous hoards of gaming fans that interact with them. That made a bit more sense to me, unfortunately, as such women are by nature already public figures, and will probably attract a lot more bile. Let's face it. People on the internet, including (especially?) gamers, are not only sexist, they're racist, homophobic, and unbelievably cruel at time. I care a lot about the gaming culture and community, and it pains me to admit this. There's a shocking disconnect between what would be acceptable in real life versus what's said online. I'd imagine very few of those idiots would ever have the courage to say those things to someone's face.
The only way to deal with this is absolute zero tolerance policies, at least on forums (literal or otherwise) that you have any control over. There's simply no excuse for this sort of behavior. The internet could really stand to collectively grow up a little, and realize that being anonymous shouldn't give you a free license to be an asshat. Frankly, I don't think that "normal" people turn into foul-mouth talking assholes when online and anonymous. My feeling is that they were assholes to begin with, but just didn't have the courage to say those things to anyone's face. These folks are not going to go away, I'm sorry to say. It would be nice if human nature could evolve a bit. But that doesn't mean anyone has to put up with this sort of shit any more than necessary. I'm also sorry to say that as a man, I'm pretty sure I'll never understand how a woman feels when she goes through something like this, and it makes me angry that so many would have to.
Did you even read to the end of the first paragraph? I'll quote myself again:
Counterpoint: Even water is poisonous if too much of it is drunk, so we have to be careful of not reading too much into this thought experiment. It's just to clarify the effects in our minds.
I'm acknowledging that even a good thing can be bad in doses too large. The point of the thought experiment is to clarify exactly what the side effects would be. Would those side effects take place in smaller scales with a smaller increase? If that's the case, then is doing this a wise idea, knowing we'll introduce those negative effects?
In fact, I'm not entirely convinced it would NOT be worthwhile to take our chances (although I remain skeptical). Again, I'll quote myself.
My feeling is that it's not a simple binary issue, more of a scale, where a smaller increase can be beneficial, but larger increases could be significantly detrimental (mostly through inflationary pressure, not necessary unemployment).
In other words, I'm not necessarily opposed to modest increases. I'm just saying we have to be very careful not to rush forward increases too large before we really understand the full ramifications of doing this.
Sheesh. This is what happens when issues get too damned political. People just stop listening once they figure out what side they think you're on.
Speaking as a conservative, I just don't think that trying to artificially adjusting market forces will have a net benefit on the lower working class. It has nothing to do with siding with businesses or hating poor people for whatever reason. I want people to succeed, and the best way to do that is to provide people with the best opportunity to do that for themselves. But it seems unlikely to me that you can pass a law and magically increase a bunch of people's living standards without negatively impacting others in an unanticipated way. Economic reality isn't quite that simple or forgiving, unfortunately, and we live in reality, not a fairyland of good intentions. People on the lower ends of the economic ladder are the first to suffer if the experiment goes awry, which is what I'm afraid of.
Honestly, I'd love to be proven wrong on this, because it's a hard position to take, and it would be great if we could actually help people this way. But the articles in the summary don't give any clear evidence one way or another, as they admit causality can't really be demonstrated. I think it's worthwhile to proceed with cautious increases and carefully watch the results, and do our best to extrapolate results to decide future policies. Unfortunately, I fear this issue has already become too political to avoid coloring opinion and studies, but I guess we'll see.
Conservatives truly do not, on a very fundamental level, understand how hard it is to move up rungs on the income ladder when you're at the bottom.
To do the conservative fantasy, and take smart risks which hard work turns into prosperity you need something to risk. Which you don't have unless you're in a City with a) a very high minimum wage or b) excellent mass transit. In the US b) means Chicago or New York.
I've heard very few claim that it's *easy* to move up in life economically, but many argue it's *possible* in the vast majority of cases. Moreover, there's an important distinction to make between equality of opportunity and equality of results. Most conservatives I've talked to seem to understand this fact very well, because a lot of them have lived through it, or have seen their parents or grandparents do it.
I'd suggest a thought experiment: if a small increase in minimum wage is good, why not a large one? What would happen if you made it $25 an hour? What about $100? Counterpoint: Even water is poisonous if too much of it is drunk, so we have to be careful of not reading too much into this thought experiment. It's just to clarify the effects in our minds.
If the cost of hiring employees goes up, the operational costs of a business also goes up. That's simply indisputable (at least, I'd hope no one here would dispute simple math). For many businesses, labor is a very significant portion of their budget. There are only a few realistic options for businesses that I can think of. I've ordered them what I would guess to be the order of probability:
1) Decrease benefits or cut worker hours (especially overtime).
2) Hire fewer workers or reduce staff to compensate.
3) Increase prices, passing the cost along to the consumers.
4) Accept lower profit margins.
It's not because the companies are evil, but neither are they good or altruistic. They're in business to make a profit - that's the entire point of business, and more to the point, *can't survive* if they don't. Many small businesses have razor-thin profit margins as is. So, #4 automatically comes last. #3 is second to last because most businesses are in competition with others, and can't arbitrarily raise prices without hurting their business overall. So, that option has to be used very cautiously, and then only if the same trend occurs among competitors.
Personally, I think it's simply a matter of deciding if we want to accept the consequences of a minimum wage, and whether that overrides the positive net effects. My feeling is that it's not a simple binary issue, more of a scale, where a smaller increase can be beneficial, but larger increases could be significantly detrimental (mostly through inflationary pressure, not necessary unemployment).
To me, this is similar to the taxation issue, which you mentioned. At some point, the drain on the economy outstrips the benefits of high tax rates, so the trick is to find the rate that combines economic benefit with government funding, combined with the moral question of how much money the government should be collecting from its citizens overall.