University will teach you one or two of these things well, the rest you have to learn for yourself. Things like people skills and project management can normally be picked up whilst working as a software developer if you at least take a little time to talk to and sometimes work with your projects and sales team. The rest you'll have to pick up in your own time.
The problem is that there are really two types of developer, those who do it because it's a job and those who do it because they love it. Neither is an inherently better or worse person than the other, different people have different priorities, but the former have to accept that they will get overtaken in life by the latter. I have a friend whose on a slightly above average wage, he could get more if he could be bothered but he likes the lack of responsibility and the easy ride through life and in many ways I frankly respect that, you've got to have at least some enjoyment in your life. But I've always been rather competitive and I get bored quickly if I spend too much time just sat around not learning, but when I am learning I absolutely love it, I feel happier and it has taught me a lot of skills.
I know my limits, I know there are still many more advanced areas of maths and computer science I have left to learn but I'll keep doing so (until I no longer have passion for it if that ever happens).
But for what it's worth I'm not sure what your few short years comment is in reference to? Learning can be a life long thing, I'm only in my early 30s, and I started out life doing technical support and did a stint on helpdesk even, it was soul destroying but in hindsight it wasn't all bad - that's where I got my people skills, that's what makes me effective at dealing with clients today as a lead dev / technical architect. I was programming since I was 13 and was always fascinated with MMO servers and client-server software in general so I learnt how to program and learnt software architecture well back then (though I've continued to learn more, as always). I did mathematics as part of my degree, and project management is just something I've picked up through my progression from junior dev, to dev, to senior dev, to lead dev, to technical architect.
You can do it all but it has to be something you want to do, and it isn't something you're going to do in just a few short years. It's taken me 18 years and there's plenty of depth left in the topics for me yet. I'm also finding business knowledge useful as I get older too because it's really essential as you move up through the career ladder - if you ever want to become a Technical Director / CTO for example you're going to have to learn a fair bit about people management, corporate finance, corporate governance and so forth.
If you do want to go for it then don't lose heart, speak to your bosses and get them to try and let you learn a bit about other parts of the business, see if they'll let you attend sales / other client meetings for example if you don't already and that sort of thing - it doesn't have to be much, just attending a 2 hour meeting once every few months or something will give you a good insight to get started with for example.
As for math specifically, if you're wondering why it might be useful then I think the easiest explanation is simply this; without math you can write software but you'll find you're mostly reinventing the wheel, to genuinely do new things and solve unsolved problems you'll need math. Math is what allowed Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google to create their pagerank algorithm for example - math is what separates people from simple followers of the field to leaders of the field doing genuinely new, and frankly in my opinion, the most interesting stuff. It'll also separate you from others without math in the interviews by a lon
"If you want to get a job as an "IT Professional" writing crappy business software, the math (and really, the whole computer science degree) doesn't really matter.
If you are a business programmer where 20ms means a database transaction, you don't need the math."
None of this is true, I've worked on business systems in everything from local government, engineering, e-learning and the financial industries. Math has helped me in every single one of them.
You know why? because math is everywhere. Yes, it's not necessarily the same math you use and it's not necessarily about optimisation (though sometimes it is, but in a different way - i.e. finding good approximate solutions to COPs because brute forcing would take a trillion years), but combinatorics, number theory, coding theory and statistics have all been insanely useful. Even set theory has made it so much easier to visualise in my mind the solution or the possibility of some of the most complex database queries I've had to put together.
Math makes you a better developer whatever industry you're in, it really is that simple. It's the difference between being able to solve pretty much any problem thrown at you and being a run of the mill drone that says incorrectly "No you can't do that with computers".
If you're not hiring developers with a mathematical background then whatever industry you're in you're settling for second best.
"I think that was the point of the query here, exactly what fields remain today that require the level of math that is (rather arcanely) still infused within a CS degree?"
All of it if you want to be any good at your job.
Sure you can get by without math, but you're always going to be outdone by those with it.
By the time you've learnt what vectors are, what they represent, how they're used, why they're used and what they mean in a 3D environment you'd be hard pressed to have not learnt the math anyway.
Even though stuff is tied up in libraries it doesn't mean you can use it without knowing the math.
"The much discussed category of "Class A" war criminals are politicians who launched a war of aggression, like Hideki Tojo, George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard. I agree that these crimes are infamous. However, it's kind of hypocritical to complain about Japanese war criminals who were brought to justice when the west is harbouring ones who have not been called to account."
I'm as anti-Bush and Blair as they come but did you really just compare someone kill of the death of millions including through concentration camps, extremely sick experiments, who supported kamikaze attacks, and who allowed the rape of hundreds of thousands of women in the same category as them? You just lost all credibility right there.
If you can't even see how much more awful the crime the Japanese leadership are guilty of in the war than anything Bush or Blair did they have literally zero sense of perspective on the issue.
"Not so much a "mess" as a "no man's land". Essentially the territory in question is seas in the middle of nowhere and under no jurisdiction. Australia claims that having its EEZ gives it jurisdiction, claim so dubious that no one takes it seriously."
The argument is as much if no one owns it, then why is anyone allowed to exploit it? If it's under no jurisdiction then is piracy legal there?
It also seems silly to claim no one takes the Australia claim seriously because you're right until you realise that Australia treating it as it's jurisdiction takes on the responsibility of performing all maritime rescue and security in the area. and has rescued many ships in trouble there over the years including some Japanese vessels, so yeah, no one takes it seriously, until they suddenly cry for Australian help when they find themselves at risk of dying in the area. Funny how they're happy to take advantage of Australia's claimed stewardship when it suits isn't it?
It's because successive Japanese governments have been scared to death that if they give up to the international community on whaling they'll be seen as weak and that nations like China, Russia, and South Korea will be emboldened to go after them over their disputes (such as dispute island ownership).
You also have to look at it from the Japanese mindset, they're a very proud people who really really struggle with admitting fault - this is why a few members of the Japanese government have now said they can't understand why there is uproar when they visit war shrines of World War II Japanese war criminals such as those responsible for the atrocities that occurred during the rape of Nanking and so forth and why there hasn't really been a formal apology for turning women in countries they invaded into sex slaves for their soldiers or compensation for some of the still living victims.
When you realise that there are still large segments of Japanese society including some of those in government who wont accept that Japan did anything wrong with some of or all of the atrocities committed during World War II you're going to have a hard time getting them to admit they were wrong on something like whaling.
"There have been allegations that endangered whales have been killed by the Japanese whaling industry, which is obviously reprehensible."
It's not just simply allegation, some of the more endangered species are on their annual catch list.
"I am vegetarian, so I am not faced with cognitive dissonance about the situation, but I don't care which animals that other people eat if it isn't actively promoting extinction of a species."
It's not cognitive dissonance, there's sound scientific reasoning behind it all.
Whales feed on things like krill, and if you lower the whale population, the population of the likes of krill increase. When the population of krill increases the population of phytoplankton decreases, when the population of phytoplankton decreases some fish stock lose their breeding and feeding grounds and the population of fish can decline and so on and so forth - you get the idea.
We can't say well, humpbacks are overpopulated so let's just start killing them now, because the fact is the likes of humpbacks are overpopulated because they've been able to thrive on the excess of krill leftover from the depleted populations of the likes of blue whales and so forth but as blues increase in population they will start to take back their fair share and the population of humpbacks will decline back to more natural levels. Ultimately the balance of populations has been decided by evolution in that the more successful a species the greater a share of the shared food source it can devour and the natural balance of populations will be based on that - if humans leave an ecosystem alone the populations will eventually return to their natural state, but it's a long process and certainly doesn't happen overnight.
Enter humans into the equation and if we decrease the population of a successful species like blue whales the population of the likes of humpbacks increase. The problem is that what you're now advocating is that well, there's plenty of humpbacks now the blue whales are depleted so let's deplete them too, and that's not a problem if you do this sustainably such that the amount of humpbacks you remove is equivalent to the relative growth in blue whales as their population recovers but that's not what the Japanese want, they now want to start hunting the likes of humpback as fast as blues were hunted so that the net result is an overall reduction in the amount of krill eating species and such.
This is the fundamental problem, it's about ensuring there is a net amount of, I guess you could call it whale biomass, to keep things like krill at safe levels. The fact is that yes, whilst the likes of humpbacks and minke are at above natural population levels had we not hunted other species to the point of extinction that that's still necessary to maintain balance in the relevant ecosystems. Or to put it succinctly, we need the increased minke/humpback etc. populations to fulfil the role of the decreased populations of other whales.
Japan is just scared that if it just gives it up and admits it was wrong on this issue that it'll look weak and that the Chinese will start taking islands off them expecting them to relent on that sort of thing too. They'd be better off doing their population that has no interest in this meat a favour and give it up, saving their country millions that they could put towards sorting their otherwise fucked up economy out because the government subsidises the whaling industry in almost it's entirety. There's no economic benefit, there's no cultural benefit (the people have already stopped eating it), and there's no environmental benefit, it's entirely a pathetically poor political decision that, if not kept in check by the rest of the world genuinely puts many large fish stocks at risk than they already are currently due to the knock on effects.
Erm, the BBC has reported all the things you mention so your suggestion that it's one-sided flies in the face of your own post.
I read the BBC as my primary news source with Al Jazeera now and then and the BBC's reporting has been plenty enough to realise that Erdogan is a horrible, horrible, wannabe dictator.
"Indeed badgers are not even on the UK list of endangered species."
That's because said list is meaningless, it only lists things where it is, for the most part, already too late.
Hedgehogs for example had a population of around 40 million in the 50s, but now number under 1 million. If that doesn't fit the definition of "endangered" I don't know what does, if something's population is declining that rapidly I'd say it's pretty fucking endangered.
Badgers in contrast are at 250,000. The current trial cull is going to kill 2% of the national population (though concentrated in one area), and remember, it's just a tiny trial so if they go for a full cull it will be much bigger. Whether you deem 250,000 spread across the country endangered or not really depends, but certainly they will be if the full cull goes ahead.
"The millimeter waves are a huge improvement. No ionizing radiation. Based on our current understanding the 27-30 Ghz microwaves are not harmful."
A UK report into them said there may be a slight risk of 1 in 100,000 chance of causing cancer which is okay because that means we're only giving 2 people passing through Heathrow each day cancer to save 0.0002 people per day from air transport related terrorism.
Yes, it would've been better to leave them to the Russians like with Syria and Iraq because they obviously became such Western loving bastions of freedom in the middle east.
It's quite possible that whatever happened it would've ended up a hatred filled shit hole. The absence of American interference doesn't always inherently lead to a peace loving forward thinking progressive nation, it's quite possible that it can be just as bad regardless.
You can certainly pin the blame for the way Iran turned out on America because that's what happened, American interference clearly didn't help, but you can't say that the absence of American interference (Syria) or decreased American interference (Iraq) would have had it turn out any better because if it's neighbours are anything to go by that's far from being a given.
The argument makes a bit more sense with places like Cuba, where, had the US not isolated it from itself it's sheer proximity to the states would if it weren't for it's braindead embargo have flooded Cuba with so many American imports and created so many Cuban exports to America coupled with a lot of travelling of US citizens to the country for tourism that America not embargoing Cuba likely would have turned Cuba into a very westernised nation by now. The same can't really be said with any degree of certainty with Iran where there is no proximity and where there is a much wider gulf in religious and cultural differences (Iran has a long distinct history of it's own, whilst Cuban people and culture, like America, still ultimately stems heavily from European descent even if they seem worlds apart politically).
"I am fully aware of everything you said but the issue remains. Israel has repeatedly attacked its neighbors justifying said attacks as self-defense. Nowhere did I mention anything about Iran or Israel's nuclear programs. I mentioned only the fact that Israel is apparently allowed to attack anyone it feels like while if a nation which has been attacked tries to find ways to stop the attacks (witness Syria getting upgraded anti-aircraft missiles), then the world goes apeshit about how horrible it is that the country is getting these weapons. "
So what you're saying is that you're going off on a tangent and talking about something that's not relevant to the topic at hand? If what you say is true that you weren't referring to Israel's nuclear arsenal then why did you post at all? It makes no sense to go completely off-topic like that when the topic was nuclear weapons.
"Back to the main point, Israel is the only country in the region, outside of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, to attack its neighbors. Between their near daily over flights of Beirut, at low level and with the attempt to cause sonic booms, to attacks inside Syria and Palestine, they are the aggressors but apparently that is okay. They're allowed to claim self-defense but not anyone else. "
This paragraph gives lie to your utter irrationality and bias. Israel has been attacked by pretty much all it's neighbours, though in recent years it's mostly be Hezbollah as a proxy for Iran/Syria or Palestinians (whom I somewhat sympathise with). But your ignorance (real or feigned) demonstrates an important point - Israel acts as a state actor, if it's going to go after someone it does so directly with it's forces. Compare that to Iran/Syria who commit war by proxy across the region - they've both funded militant attacks on Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran has funded attacks outside it's borders too in places like Bulgaria, and Argentina. This is why Iran is hard to trust, especially with nuclear weapons - there's the ever present danger that Iran can use a proxy to detonate a nuke and tip the balance of power using the veil of uncertainty over a difficulty of proving that Iran was involved and counter-attacking even if it was. It changes the whole game of nuclear balance, and that's a problem.
"As to your final comment, if my kid (if I had a kid) was constantly being hit/attacked by some other kid, of course he could fight back. Or are you saying he should take it and turn the cheek, letting himself be open for further attacks down the line?"
I'm saying it's a childlike argument, from a childlike mind, nothing more, nothing less.
Sure but only one of those hit +5 and the one that did said it was "pleasant". I'd hardly say that isn't giving it a free ride, especially compared to the number of criticisms of Steam that always get downmodded. I'm not saying people don't criticise it, just that when they do they're nearly always slapped right down even if they're legitimately complaining and stick to the facts. I still remember when Steam started regional pricing, and when some people bought CoD Steam codes one year from one country and activated them in another only for Valve to remove their access despite it being a legitimate purchase. If EA or Activision did these things there'd be massive drama here, but when Valve did them people were actively defending it.
"That being said, Steam is very popular because it's very unobtrusive and almost never causes problems."
It always starts updating and using my bandwidth when I don't want it to and I've had a number of issues with DRM on it ranging from not being able to play Dawn of War II which I bought a physical copy of but required Steam activation because their servers rejected activation for a few days, to Defcon randomly only working in a trial manner, to a couple of games not playing at all in the past when their servers have randomly just said no for some god unknown reason.
There are fanboys all across the net, Apple, Sony, Google, even Microsoft, but there are also Valve fanboys and Slashdot is their hive. That's okay, people have their opinions, but it's a combination of the hypocrisy and the change of opinion here that's annoying. The same people who are quick to attack DRM if EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft or Sony do it are the same ones who nonsensically and hypocritically defend it from Valve. It's sad because there was a time when Slashdot recognised the problems with DRM universally and was very vocal about it whoever it was from, but it's a genuinely successful pursuit of the slippery slope, because although DRM by it's inherent nature always offers a worse scenario for the end user than no DRM, it's become deemed acceptable from some vendors. As such it's no wonder the likes of EA et. al. are trying to push it further - because the weak minded fools defending it in the likes of Steam have deemed it acceptable there, companies are going to continue to try and tighten the noose further when in reality we should still be pushing for no DRM at all because still, to this very day, all it does is harm legitimate customers.
"Why would the average US citizen give two shits about what you think is right?"
Well judging by the amount of Americans complaining about how everyone hates them it seems they do care, otherwise they wouldn't be complaining about it.
"The indiscriminate hate mongering will result in the US becoming even more set on basically telling the world to fuck off."
And that's okay if that's what the American people want. It just means the US position in the world will continue to follow a decline from empire to irrelevance. I'd rather that didn't happen because I think it has potential as a force for good, but if it is as you say, that the US feels the interests of it's 0.3bn people is well over and above the interests of the other 6.7bn people in the world to the extent of harming those 6.7bn people's interests, then it will begin to cease to matter and over time see a decrease in influence in the world coupled with a relative decrease in living standards and quality of life. That's the reality of the choice it has to make.
"It should serve as a perfect example of what happens when the US refuses to get involved."
That would be funny if it weren't for the tragic clusterfuck the US made of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan when it got involved. If you think America could magically fix Syria then you must be one of those stupid American exceptionalists I was referring to that thinks America is magic and has no clue about the way the world really works.
"Given that Israel has a strong track record of attacking its neighbors without provocation by claiming self-defense and has threatened to continue to do so. .."
Hey look, that inability to cope with changes in the geopolitical landscape over time is back.
Israel got their nukes long ago and has a track record thus far of showing absolutely no intention of using them in an aggressive manner. Had Israel not got nuke and been seeking them today I guarantee you there would've been absolutely as much international pressure against it as there is against Iran right now, the world wouldn't tolerate the risk in the same way we don't want to tolerate the risk with Iran. As I said, maybe Iran would be just like Israel, have nukes and not use them offensively, or not let them get into the hands of terrorists, but we don't have the benefit of hindsight with Iran so we cannot take the risk.
Even ignoring the point I made above there are still marked differences between Iran and Israel in that Iran is an NPT signatory and is not fulfilling it's obligations (the IAEA site has details on this in it's publicly available reports) where Israel isn't so isn't breaking any international laws to give a legal basis for either sanctions or action - Iran has the right to withdraw but it hasn't because it also wants the benefits being a signatory brings such as nuclear technology transfer for peaceful purposes. Effectively it wants it's cake, and to eat it too. I've also never seen the Israelis talk of wiping Iran off the map, or suggest any kind of obliteration of the Iranian population in the way the Iranian government constantly talks about killing all the Jews in Israel, which kind of matters.
Why oh why are people like you and the other guy I responded to so painfully incapable of understanding any kind of reasoning based on anything beyond the most simplistic of logic? It's the sort of reasoning you see from kids when they cry "He hit me Dad, so why can't I hit him back?".
1) That they hand back anything irrelevant to the case and do not keep a copy themselves.
2) That they hand a copy of everything that is deemed relevant.
So Kim will get access to all the data once more and the police will lose access to all data and hardware that isn't directly relevant to the case itself.
This is an important case for the boundaries of where the line between legitimate hosting and illegal file sharing is drawn.
It's about as important and relevant as any news you can get on Slashdot because the result of it has real repercussions - either the internet is safe from the authorities arbitrarily shutting down hosting companies because they feel like it, or the authorities win another battle to the point where state/law enforcement based censorship slips even further towards companies like Google also being guilty of supporting infringement to a legally culpable degree.
Can we have a permanent hiatus on you commenting instead?
I think it's often a bit of a misnomer that when people say they "hate America" or "hate Americans" that they hate every individual in the country, normally when they meet a sample of said individuals they'll actually quite like some of them, I do that's for sure, in fact, even the most extreme extremists like Bin Laden found a few Americans they liked.
But normally when people say they hate a group like Americans they're saying they hate the worst (in their opinion) of that grouping.
I'm British and I've often seen enough people talking about how they hate the Brits, and that's okay, I don't take it personally. If I share their views about everything they say is wrong with my country I assume it's not me they're talking about, and that if they are still referring to me even though we're in agreement then they're not rational enough for it to really be worth caring about their opinion anyway. I'm well aware of and have a lot of respect for the Americans who feel the same way I do on the sorts of issues I've mentioned. My distaste for their country and a number of their countrymen certainly isn't a personal issue with them because I very much get that they too would like things to change for the better.
I simply see hate as a natural opposite to like, with apathy in the middle. I neither like the US in general right now, nor am apathetic to it, hence why I say I hate it, to not hate it would mean accepting one of the other two options, neither of which correctly sums up my position on the topic right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always told people who ask that if you want to be the best developer you can be then you need:
- Mathematics
- Programming / Comp. Sci.
- Software architecture
- Project management
- People skills
University will teach you one or two of these things well, the rest you have to learn for yourself. Things like people skills and project management can normally be picked up whilst working as a software developer if you at least take a little time to talk to and sometimes work with your projects and sales team. The rest you'll have to pick up in your own time.
The problem is that there are really two types of developer, those who do it because it's a job and those who do it because they love it. Neither is an inherently better or worse person than the other, different people have different priorities, but the former have to accept that they will get overtaken in life by the latter. I have a friend whose on a slightly above average wage, he could get more if he could be bothered but he likes the lack of responsibility and the easy ride through life and in many ways I frankly respect that, you've got to have at least some enjoyment in your life. But I've always been rather competitive and I get bored quickly if I spend too much time just sat around not learning, but when I am learning I absolutely love it, I feel happier and it has taught me a lot of skills.
I know my limits, I know there are still many more advanced areas of maths and computer science I have left to learn but I'll keep doing so (until I no longer have passion for it if that ever happens).
But for what it's worth I'm not sure what your few short years comment is in reference to? Learning can be a life long thing, I'm only in my early 30s, and I started out life doing technical support and did a stint on helpdesk even, it was soul destroying but in hindsight it wasn't all bad - that's where I got my people skills, that's what makes me effective at dealing with clients today as a lead dev / technical architect. I was programming since I was 13 and was always fascinated with MMO servers and client-server software in general so I learnt how to program and learnt software architecture well back then (though I've continued to learn more, as always). I did mathematics as part of my degree, and project management is just something I've picked up through my progression from junior dev, to dev, to senior dev, to lead dev, to technical architect.
You can do it all but it has to be something you want to do, and it isn't something you're going to do in just a few short years. It's taken me 18 years and there's plenty of depth left in the topics for me yet. I'm also finding business knowledge useful as I get older too because it's really essential as you move up through the career ladder - if you ever want to become a Technical Director / CTO for example you're going to have to learn a fair bit about people management, corporate finance, corporate governance and so forth.
If you do want to go for it then don't lose heart, speak to your bosses and get them to try and let you learn a bit about other parts of the business, see if they'll let you attend sales / other client meetings for example if you don't already and that sort of thing - it doesn't have to be much, just attending a 2 hour meeting once every few months or something will give you a good insight to get started with for example.
As for math specifically, if you're wondering why it might be useful then I think the easiest explanation is simply this; without math you can write software but you'll find you're mostly reinventing the wheel, to genuinely do new things and solve unsolved problems you'll need math. Math is what allowed Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google to create their pagerank algorithm for example - math is what separates people from simple followers of the field to leaders of the field doing genuinely new, and frankly in my opinion, the most interesting stuff. It'll also separate you from others without math in the interviews by a lon
"If you want to get a job as an "IT Professional" writing crappy business software, the math (and really, the whole computer science degree) doesn't really matter.
If you are a business programmer where 20ms means a database transaction, you don't need the math."
None of this is true, I've worked on business systems in everything from local government, engineering, e-learning and the financial industries. Math has helped me in every single one of them.
You know why? because math is everywhere. Yes, it's not necessarily the same math you use and it's not necessarily about optimisation (though sometimes it is, but in a different way - i.e. finding good approximate solutions to COPs because brute forcing would take a trillion years), but combinatorics, number theory, coding theory and statistics have all been insanely useful. Even set theory has made it so much easier to visualise in my mind the solution or the possibility of some of the most complex database queries I've had to put together.
Math makes you a better developer whatever industry you're in, it really is that simple. It's the difference between being able to solve pretty much any problem thrown at you and being a run of the mill drone that says incorrectly "No you can't do that with computers".
If you're not hiring developers with a mathematical background then whatever industry you're in you're settling for second best.
"I think that was the point of the query here, exactly what fields remain today that require the level of math that is (rather arcanely) still infused within a CS degree?"
All of it if you want to be any good at your job.
Sure you can get by without math, but you're always going to be outdone by those with it.
By the time you've learnt what vectors are, what they represent, how they're used, why they're used and what they mean in a 3D environment you'd be hard pressed to have not learnt the math anyway.
Even though stuff is tied up in libraries it doesn't mean you can use it without knowing the math.
"The much discussed category of "Class A" war criminals are politicians who launched a war of aggression, like Hideki Tojo, George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard. I agree that these crimes are infamous. However, it's kind of hypocritical to complain about Japanese war criminals who were brought to justice when the west is harbouring ones who have not been called to account."
I'm as anti-Bush and Blair as they come but did you really just compare someone kill of the death of millions including through concentration camps, extremely sick experiments, who supported kamikaze attacks, and who allowed the rape of hundreds of thousands of women in the same category as them? You just lost all credibility right there.
If you can't even see how much more awful the crime the Japanese leadership are guilty of in the war than anything Bush or Blair did they have literally zero sense of perspective on the issue.
Let me guess, you're Japanese?
"Not so much a "mess" as a "no man's land". Essentially the territory in question is seas in the middle of nowhere and under no jurisdiction. Australia claims that having its EEZ gives it jurisdiction, claim so dubious that no one takes it seriously."
The argument is as much if no one owns it, then why is anyone allowed to exploit it? If it's under no jurisdiction then is piracy legal there?
It also seems silly to claim no one takes the Australia claim seriously because you're right until you realise that Australia treating it as it's jurisdiction takes on the responsibility of performing all maritime rescue and security in the area. and has rescued many ships in trouble there over the years including some Japanese vessels, so yeah, no one takes it seriously, until they suddenly cry for Australian help when they find themselves at risk of dying in the area. Funny how they're happy to take advantage of Australia's claimed stewardship when it suits isn't it?
It's because successive Japanese governments have been scared to death that if they give up to the international community on whaling they'll be seen as weak and that nations like China, Russia, and South Korea will be emboldened to go after them over their disputes (such as dispute island ownership).
You also have to look at it from the Japanese mindset, they're a very proud people who really really struggle with admitting fault - this is why a few members of the Japanese government have now said they can't understand why there is uproar when they visit war shrines of World War II Japanese war criminals such as those responsible for the atrocities that occurred during the rape of Nanking and so forth and why there hasn't really been a formal apology for turning women in countries they invaded into sex slaves for their soldiers or compensation for some of the still living victims.
When you realise that there are still large segments of Japanese society including some of those in government who wont accept that Japan did anything wrong with some of or all of the atrocities committed during World War II you're going to have a hard time getting them to admit they were wrong on something like whaling.
"There have been allegations that endangered whales have been killed by the Japanese whaling industry, which is obviously reprehensible."
It's not just simply allegation, some of the more endangered species are on their annual catch list.
"I am vegetarian, so I am not faced with cognitive dissonance about the situation, but I don't care which animals that other people eat if it isn't actively promoting extinction of a species."
It's not cognitive dissonance, there's sound scientific reasoning behind it all.
Whales feed on things like krill, and if you lower the whale population, the population of the likes of krill increase. When the population of krill increases the population of phytoplankton decreases, when the population of phytoplankton decreases some fish stock lose their breeding and feeding grounds and the population of fish can decline and so on and so forth - you get the idea.
We can't say well, humpbacks are overpopulated so let's just start killing them now, because the fact is the likes of humpbacks are overpopulated because they've been able to thrive on the excess of krill leftover from the depleted populations of the likes of blue whales and so forth but as blues increase in population they will start to take back their fair share and the population of humpbacks will decline back to more natural levels. Ultimately the balance of populations has been decided by evolution in that the more successful a species the greater a share of the shared food source it can devour and the natural balance of populations will be based on that - if humans leave an ecosystem alone the populations will eventually return to their natural state, but it's a long process and certainly doesn't happen overnight.
Enter humans into the equation and if we decrease the population of a successful species like blue whales the population of the likes of humpbacks increase. The problem is that what you're now advocating is that well, there's plenty of humpbacks now the blue whales are depleted so let's deplete them too, and that's not a problem if you do this sustainably such that the amount of humpbacks you remove is equivalent to the relative growth in blue whales as their population recovers but that's not what the Japanese want, they now want to start hunting the likes of humpback as fast as blues were hunted so that the net result is an overall reduction in the amount of krill eating species and such.
This is the fundamental problem, it's about ensuring there is a net amount of, I guess you could call it whale biomass, to keep things like krill at safe levels. The fact is that yes, whilst the likes of humpbacks and minke are at above natural population levels had we not hunted other species to the point of extinction that that's still necessary to maintain balance in the relevant ecosystems. Or to put it succinctly, we need the increased minke/humpback etc. populations to fulfil the role of the decreased populations of other whales.
Japan is just scared that if it just gives it up and admits it was wrong on this issue that it'll look weak and that the Chinese will start taking islands off them expecting them to relent on that sort of thing too. They'd be better off doing their population that has no interest in this meat a favour and give it up, saving their country millions that they could put towards sorting their otherwise fucked up economy out because the government subsidises the whaling industry in almost it's entirety. There's no economic benefit, there's no cultural benefit (the people have already stopped eating it), and there's no environmental benefit, it's entirely a pathetically poor political decision that, if not kept in check by the rest of the world genuinely puts many large fish stocks at risk than they already are currently due to the knock on effects.
Erm, the BBC has reported all the things you mention so your suggestion that it's one-sided flies in the face of your own post.
I read the BBC as my primary news source with Al Jazeera now and then and the BBC's reporting has been plenty enough to realise that Erdogan is a horrible, horrible, wannabe dictator.
Yes, it's called the farming lobby lobbying to shift blame away from anything but themselves.
"Indeed badgers are not even on the UK list of endangered species."
That's because said list is meaningless, it only lists things where it is, for the most part, already too late.
Hedgehogs for example had a population of around 40 million in the 50s, but now number under 1 million. If that doesn't fit the definition of "endangered" I don't know what does, if something's population is declining that rapidly I'd say it's pretty fucking endangered.
Badgers in contrast are at 250,000. The current trial cull is going to kill 2% of the national population (though concentrated in one area), and remember, it's just a tiny trial so if they go for a full cull it will be much bigger. Whether you deem 250,000 spread across the country endangered or not really depends, but certainly they will be if the full cull goes ahead.
"The millimeter waves are a huge improvement. No ionizing radiation. Based on our current understanding the 27-30 Ghz microwaves are not harmful."
A UK report into them said there may be a slight risk of 1 in 100,000 chance of causing cancer which is okay because that means we're only giving 2 people passing through Heathrow each day cancer to save 0.0002 people per day from air transport related terrorism.
NetApplication is about as useful for obtaining factual information as talking to a stale turd.
Yes, it would've been better to leave them to the Russians like with Syria and Iraq because they obviously became such Western loving bastions of freedom in the middle east.
It's quite possible that whatever happened it would've ended up a hatred filled shit hole. The absence of American interference doesn't always inherently lead to a peace loving forward thinking progressive nation, it's quite possible that it can be just as bad regardless.
You can certainly pin the blame for the way Iran turned out on America because that's what happened, American interference clearly didn't help, but you can't say that the absence of American interference (Syria) or decreased American interference (Iraq) would have had it turn out any better because if it's neighbours are anything to go by that's far from being a given.
The argument makes a bit more sense with places like Cuba, where, had the US not isolated it from itself it's sheer proximity to the states would if it weren't for it's braindead embargo have flooded Cuba with so many American imports and created so many Cuban exports to America coupled with a lot of travelling of US citizens to the country for tourism that America not embargoing Cuba likely would have turned Cuba into a very westernised nation by now. The same can't really be said with any degree of certainty with Iran where there is no proximity and where there is a much wider gulf in religious and cultural differences (Iran has a long distinct history of it's own, whilst Cuban people and culture, like America, still ultimately stems heavily from European descent even if they seem worlds apart politically).
Not as easily as your poor karma makes it easy to ignore the things you say however.
"I am fully aware of everything you said but the issue remains. Israel has repeatedly attacked its neighbors justifying said attacks as self-defense. Nowhere did I mention anything about Iran or Israel's nuclear programs. I mentioned only the fact that Israel is apparently allowed to attack anyone it feels like while if a nation which has been attacked tries to find ways to stop the attacks (witness Syria getting upgraded anti-aircraft missiles), then the world goes apeshit about how horrible it is that the country is getting these weapons. "
So what you're saying is that you're going off on a tangent and talking about something that's not relevant to the topic at hand? If what you say is true that you weren't referring to Israel's nuclear arsenal then why did you post at all? It makes no sense to go completely off-topic like that when the topic was nuclear weapons.
"Back to the main point, Israel is the only country in the region, outside of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, to attack its neighbors. Between their near daily over flights of Beirut, at low level and with the attempt to cause sonic booms, to attacks inside Syria and Palestine, they are the aggressors but apparently that is okay. They're allowed to claim self-defense but not anyone else. "
This paragraph gives lie to your utter irrationality and bias. Israel has been attacked by pretty much all it's neighbours, though in recent years it's mostly be Hezbollah as a proxy for Iran/Syria or Palestinians (whom I somewhat sympathise with). But your ignorance (real or feigned) demonstrates an important point - Israel acts as a state actor, if it's going to go after someone it does so directly with it's forces. Compare that to Iran/Syria who commit war by proxy across the region - they've both funded militant attacks on Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran has funded attacks outside it's borders too in places like Bulgaria, and Argentina. This is why Iran is hard to trust, especially with nuclear weapons - there's the ever present danger that Iran can use a proxy to detonate a nuke and tip the balance of power using the veil of uncertainty over a difficulty of proving that Iran was involved and counter-attacking even if it was. It changes the whole game of nuclear balance, and that's a problem.
"As to your final comment, if my kid (if I had a kid) was constantly being hit/attacked by some other kid, of course he could fight back. Or are you saying he should take it and turn the cheek, letting himself be open for further attacks down the line?"
I'm saying it's a childlike argument, from a childlike mind, nothing more, nothing less.
Sure but only one of those hit +5 and the one that did said it was "pleasant". I'd hardly say that isn't giving it a free ride, especially compared to the number of criticisms of Steam that always get downmodded. I'm not saying people don't criticise it, just that when they do they're nearly always slapped right down even if they're legitimately complaining and stick to the facts. I still remember when Steam started regional pricing, and when some people bought CoD Steam codes one year from one country and activated them in another only for Valve to remove their access despite it being a legitimate purchase. If EA or Activision did these things there'd be massive drama here, but when Valve did them people were actively defending it.
"That being said, Steam is very popular because it's very unobtrusive and almost never causes problems."
It always starts updating and using my bandwidth when I don't want it to and I've had a number of issues with DRM on it ranging from not being able to play Dawn of War II which I bought a physical copy of but required Steam activation because their servers rejected activation for a few days, to Defcon randomly only working in a trial manner, to a couple of games not playing at all in the past when their servers have randomly just said no for some god unknown reason.
There are fanboys all across the net, Apple, Sony, Google, even Microsoft, but there are also Valve fanboys and Slashdot is their hive. That's okay, people have their opinions, but it's a combination of the hypocrisy and the change of opinion here that's annoying. The same people who are quick to attack DRM if EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft or Sony do it are the same ones who nonsensically and hypocritically defend it from Valve. It's sad because there was a time when Slashdot recognised the problems with DRM universally and was very vocal about it whoever it was from, but it's a genuinely successful pursuit of the slippery slope, because although DRM by it's inherent nature always offers a worse scenario for the end user than no DRM, it's become deemed acceptable from some vendors. As such it's no wonder the likes of EA et. al. are trying to push it further - because the weak minded fools defending it in the likes of Steam have deemed it acceptable there, companies are going to continue to try and tighten the noose further when in reality we should still be pushing for no DRM at all because still, to this very day, all it does is harm legitimate customers.
"Why would the average US citizen give two shits about what you think is right?"
Well judging by the amount of Americans complaining about how everyone hates them it seems they do care, otherwise they wouldn't be complaining about it.
"The indiscriminate hate mongering will result in the US becoming even more set on basically telling the world to fuck off."
And that's okay if that's what the American people want. It just means the US position in the world will continue to follow a decline from empire to irrelevance. I'd rather that didn't happen because I think it has potential as a force for good, but if it is as you say, that the US feels the interests of it's 0.3bn people is well over and above the interests of the other 6.7bn people in the world to the extent of harming those 6.7bn people's interests, then it will begin to cease to matter and over time see a decrease in influence in the world coupled with a relative decrease in living standards and quality of life. That's the reality of the choice it has to make.
"It should serve as a perfect example of what happens when the US refuses to get involved."
That would be funny if it weren't for the tragic clusterfuck the US made of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan when it got involved. If you think America could magically fix Syria then you must be one of those stupid American exceptionalists I was referring to that thinks America is magic and has no clue about the way the world really works.
He was being multicultural. The one with the sz was the Czech version!
"Given that Israel has a strong track record of attacking its neighbors without provocation by claiming self-defense and has threatened to continue to do so. . ."
Hey look, that inability to cope with changes in the geopolitical landscape over time is back.
Israel got their nukes long ago and has a track record thus far of showing absolutely no intention of using them in an aggressive manner. Had Israel not got nuke and been seeking them today I guarantee you there would've been absolutely as much international pressure against it as there is against Iran right now, the world wouldn't tolerate the risk in the same way we don't want to tolerate the risk with Iran. As I said, maybe Iran would be just like Israel, have nukes and not use them offensively, or not let them get into the hands of terrorists, but we don't have the benefit of hindsight with Iran so we cannot take the risk.
Even ignoring the point I made above there are still marked differences between Iran and Israel in that Iran is an NPT signatory and is not fulfilling it's obligations (the IAEA site has details on this in it's publicly available reports) where Israel isn't so isn't breaking any international laws to give a legal basis for either sanctions or action - Iran has the right to withdraw but it hasn't because it also wants the benefits being a signatory brings such as nuclear technology transfer for peaceful purposes. Effectively it wants it's cake, and to eat it too. I've also never seen the Israelis talk of wiping Iran off the map, or suggest any kind of obliteration of the Iranian population in the way the Iranian government constantly talks about killing all the Jews in Israel, which kind of matters.
Why oh why are people like you and the other guy I responded to so painfully incapable of understanding any kind of reasoning based on anything beyond the most simplistic of logic? It's the sort of reasoning you see from kids when they cry "He hit me Dad, so why can't I hit him back?".
Yes, there seems to be two facets to the ruling:
1) That they hand back anything irrelevant to the case and do not keep a copy themselves.
2) That they hand a copy of everything that is deemed relevant.
So Kim will get access to all the data once more and the police will lose access to all data and hardware that isn't directly relevant to the case itself.
Oh do fuck off.
This is an important case for the boundaries of where the line between legitimate hosting and illegal file sharing is drawn.
It's about as important and relevant as any news you can get on Slashdot because the result of it has real repercussions - either the internet is safe from the authorities arbitrarily shutting down hosting companies because they feel like it, or the authorities win another battle to the point where state/law enforcement based censorship slips even further towards companies like Google also being guilty of supporting infringement to a legally culpable degree.
Can we have a permanent hiatus on you commenting instead?
I think it's often a bit of a misnomer that when people say they "hate America" or "hate Americans" that they hate every individual in the country, normally when they meet a sample of said individuals they'll actually quite like some of them, I do that's for sure, in fact, even the most extreme extremists like Bin Laden found a few Americans they liked.
But normally when people say they hate a group like Americans they're saying they hate the worst (in their opinion) of that grouping.
I'm British and I've often seen enough people talking about how they hate the Brits, and that's okay, I don't take it personally. If I share their views about everything they say is wrong with my country I assume it's not me they're talking about, and that if they are still referring to me even though we're in agreement then they're not rational enough for it to really be worth caring about their opinion anyway. I'm well aware of and have a lot of respect for the Americans who feel the same way I do on the sorts of issues I've mentioned. My distaste for their country and a number of their countrymen certainly isn't a personal issue with them because I very much get that they too would like things to change for the better.
I simply see hate as a natural opposite to like, with apathy in the middle. I neither like the US in general right now, nor am apathetic to it, hence why I say I hate it, to not hate it would mean accepting one of the other two options, neither of which correctly sums up my position on the topic right now.
Neither do random Slashdot posters being retarded, and yet, you're still here.